Oil pilfering racket busted

KOCHI: The Shadow wing of the City Police on Tuesday busted a gang that was involved in pilfering furnace oil from a tanker lorry transporting fuel from the BPCL plant to a rubber factory in Kakkanad. The arrested are Santhosh, Manoj, Mathai and  Basil John, all native of Alappuzha. The police also seized the tanker lorry bearing Reg. No. KL-7D 2329. According to the police, the racketeers used to pilfer oil from the lorry and store it in a 20-feet deep tank in the backyard of a house in Kandanad near Tripunithara. They had been operating for the past one year. After pilfering the fuel, the gang used to create foam inside the tanker by repeatedly applying the sudden break, in a bid to deceive the rubber company owners.The police estimated that the furnace oil in the tanker contained 9,090 litres which was more than `4 lakh. The quantity of the oil in the 20 feet tank is yet to be estimated.“We have been tracing the persons for the last one week. The racketeers used to sell the furnace oil in the black market. More persons involved with the racket will be held soon,” said M N Ramesh, Assistant Commissioner and in-charge of the Kochi Shadow police.