Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Af­ter two months of sur­veil­lance, po­lice yes­ter­day un­cov­ered a ma­jor diesel-bunker­ing rack­et in Sea Lots which led to the ar­rests of two men who were caught pump­ing diesel in­to a stor­age tank buried un­der a mound of dirt and con­crete.Po­lice said sev­er­al own­ers of gas sta­tions and gang lead­ers were in­volved in the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty and sus­pect­ed they had been steal­ing diesel from Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um (NP) ser­vice sta­tions. NP of­fi­cials were al­so said to be linked.

Up to 6 pm, fu­el was be­ing si­phoned out of a cylin­dri­cal stor­age tank. A back­hoe was used to un­cov­er the buried tanks.Po­lice sources said there were four tanks hold­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25,000 gal­lons of diesel. Of­fi­cers from the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, Cus­toms and Ex­cise of­fi­cials, NP po­lice, sol­diers and of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of En­er­gy were on the scene at the shore­line at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve.

Po­lice said it was a well-or­gan­ised op­er­a­tion where small boats would come to be ser­viced at the shore­line on Tues­days and Thurs­days and then sail to big­ger Cari­com boats docked a short dis­tance away.Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers said in ex­change for the sub­sidised fu­el, gang lead­ers en­gaged in the il­le­gal trade would re­ceive guns and drugs.

Sev­er­al res­i­dents of the area were in their yards and porch­es and con­tin­ued about their busi­ness de­spite the move­ments of po­lice and sol­diers.The two men who were ar­rest­ed, ages 26 and 34, are from Tu­na­puna and Sea Lots.The men made two trips from San Fer­nan­do to Sea Lots in a truck and were fol­lowed by po­lice. The ac­tiv­i­ty start­ed around 11 am.

Po­lice said in the next 48 hours they ex­pect to make more ar­rests and in­tend­ed to mon­i­tor oth­er places where such il­le­gal trade takes place.NP chair­man Neil Go­sine was said to have vis­it­ed the scene. Calls to his mo­bile went unan­swered last night.The op­er­a­tion is head­ed by DCP Meryvn Richard­son.The Besson Street Po­lice CID is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.