Police arrested a 19-year-old man in San Diego earlier this week on suspicion stealing thousands of dollars worth of gas from a suburban gas station over the course of half a year.
San Diego news outlets report that authorities began looking into the thefts after they were tipped off by employees of a Chevron station in an San Diego suburb called Lincoln Acres. Chevron and gas station workers brought on police after their own investigation showed the station’s fuel amounts and sales weren’t adding up. From Fox 5 San Diego:
Prior to making the report, the sheriff’s department said the employees had been working with Chevron’s IT Department for several weeks to figure out why their fuel consumption amounts were not matching sale amounts at the end of the day.
When they began reviewing video surveillance footage from the dates and times of the unauthorized transactions in the system, the employees noticed the same vehicle and man siphoning gas into large jugs.
This individual had been going to this Chevron station twice a week since June and making off with over $2,000 in gas each time in the process. Just how exactly were they getting away with so much fuel? According to NBC San Diego, the individual was allegedly tricking the pumps using a dummy credit card that tricked “the fuel system into thinking the pump was in use, even though the transactions were never completed.”
The individual was eventually caught because, like a genius, he kept going back to the same Chevron station to steal fuel. Gas station workers tipped off police after spotting the same suspicious vehicle as the previous incidents.
When police arrived at the station on December 2, they encountered 19-year old Andrew Gerardo Escobedo. Police allegedly caught Escobedo red handed filling up large white containers of fuel that were inside of a GMC Yukon. Authorities estimate that over the course of six months Escobedo made off with over $42,000 in fuel. San Diego County Sheriffs arrested and booked him at San Diego Central Jail where he’s being held on suspicion of grand theft.
