Jensen La Vende

The un­der­ground rack­et of diesel bunker­ing was dealt an­oth­er blow by law­men yes­ter­day, af­ter two stor­age tanks were dis­cov­ered in Sea Lots, Laven­tille.This was the third time for the year that il­le­gal bunker­ing ac­tiv­i­ty has been dis­cov­ered an the com­mu­ni­ty.Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 2.30 pm of­fi­cers of the In­ter Agency Task Force (IATF) were on pa­trol in the Sea Lots area, just off Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, when they dis­cov­ered the two un­der­ground tanks on an aban­doned lot of land.

The tanks were es­ti­mat­ed to be 12 feet deep with close to four feet of diesel in each tank, and were close to the shore­line.The of­fi­cers al­so found a pump and sev­er­al hoses used to fill the tanks of boats that of­fi­cers be­lieve went in­to the man­grove from the Gulf of Paria to fill up on fu­el.Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um (NP), Neil Go­sine, vis­it­ed the site yes­ter­day and or­dered that the tanks be ex­ca­vat­ed and re­turned to NP.

The task en­tailed the tanks be­ing emp­tied, re­moved from be­neath the earth and re­filled with the fu­el they had be­fore be­ing trans­port­ed to the near­by NP Sea Lots head­quar­ters.Go­sine said checks would be made to see if there are any oth­er tanks buried on the aban­doned lot.When the T&T Guardian ar­rived on the scene yes­ter­day, of­fi­cers were seen stand­ing guard at the site of the lat­est find, which was es­ti­mat­ed to be worth up­ward of $100,000.

NP of­fi­cials said the tanks would have been there for some­time, due to the cor­ro­sion seen on them, adding the il­le­gal bunker­ing rack­et is be­ing vig­or­ous­ly pur­sued by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, NP and the En­er­gy Min­istry.In June, po­lice al­so dis­cov­ered an­oth­er il­le­gal diesel rack­et at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Sea Lots. On that oc­ca­sion two men were ar­rest­ed. In Au­gust, po­lice al­so dis­cov­ered diesel stored in four tanks off Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, worth an es­ti­mat­ed $90,000.

In­spect Sa­hadeo Singh, of the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, along with Snr Sup Clay­ton Al­leyne vis­it­ed the scene yes­ter­day.Besson Street po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.