Police nab furnace oil pilfering gang

CHENNAI: The Kancheepuram police on Friday busted a furnace oil pilfering racket near Sriperumpudur and arrested three persons. The gang has been involved in the illegal business for more than two years and the police suspect them to be part of a network of 35 gangs across the state. They would pilfer oil from tankers going from Manali to Bangalore and Hyderabad at night with the consent of the driver and replace it with cheap adulterants, the police said.
On a tip-off, a team of police officials went to an interior place called Sundramedu near Sriperumpudur in the wee hours of Friday.They found a five-member gang transferring furnace oil from a tanker which was on its way from a refinery at Manali to Bangalore. Four of them fled when the police reached the spot. The team caught one man, M Kumaresan (45), who was later identified as a driver from Chennai. The police quoted Kumaresan as saying that he worked on behalf of a bigger gang which has political backing in Tirunelveli.
The police team found a submerged oil tank of 35,000-litre capacity. "They have been selling the furnace oil to local factories after adding Kerosene," Sriperumpudur DSP MP Balasubaramaniam told TOI. The police seized about 30,000 litres of adulterated fuel, 40 barrels and two tanker lorries from the spot on Friday.
The police said the gang here was operating in the name of an oil agency in Katarambakkam panchayat. They would flag down the driver, who would have been already informed about the pilferage, and take the tanker off the highway into an interior spot. They would then transfer a few hundreds of litres of the oil from the tanker which has a capacity of 25,000 litres, and replace it with adulterants, the police said.
"At least 50 tankers are diverted in a similar way and furnace oil pilfered. They are experts in breaking the seal on the oil pipes and resealing them," a senior police officer said.
"We are hunting for the kingpin who hails from Tirunelveli. We are also on the lookout for the owners of the trucks," Sriperumbudur inspector M Surendran said. Two special teams have been formed to nab the accused.
The police team also arrested two others for running an illegal chemical godown, 200 metres from spot. "They were selling petroleum products without a licence," a police officer said. Police identified the accused as V Seenu (46) and D Sekar (28) of Poonamallee.