<![CDATA[Central Crime Branch officials on Thursday raided a godown at a timber yard at Medahalli and arrested four men, including three drivers, for allegedly stealing diesel from tankers supplying fuel to petrol stations and other agencies. According to the police, the accused — Venkatanadaiah, 30, Gururaj, 37, Mallesh, 35, and Govindaraju, 41, — would steal 10 litres of diesel from each tankers and store it in the yard. As per the procedure, the tankers would get loaded at Devanagundhi OMC’s terminal, but instead of driving directly to their destination, the drivers would stop at the godown and pump out exactly 10 litres of diesel from each tanker using duplicate keys to access the fuel and later sell it Rs.48 per litre. Officials said no more than 10 litres was being stolen from each tanker as that could be considered as evaporated during the course of transportation. The police seized three trucks and 60,000 litres of fuel from the godown. “Though transport companies have foolproof security measures such as GPS and VMS ( vendor management system) the accused were able to bypass them,” said a senior police officer. The police are questioning the accused to ascertain if it was a large-scale operation.]]>
