Three arrested for oil smuggling scam

City crime branch on Tuesday busted a oil smuggling racket and arrested three tanker drivers for helping in the pilferage of furnace oil which belongs to BPCL. The alleged oil mafia, Akram Siddiqi, is the mastermind of the syndicate.

On Sunday, crime branch unit 9 officers raided a parking lot of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited’s (BPCL) refinery in Mahul and seized three tanker over suspicion.

The tankers were waiting for unloading furnace oil at the refinery.

Samples from all the three tankers have been taken in the presence of BPCL officers and sent for testing. The testing conclude that few tanker compartments were filled with water instead furnace oil, while the few samples contain water beyond the permissible limits.

After the test, crime branch arrested the three drivers identified as Yakub Nasim Siddiqi (26), Saifu Mohammad Nafis Khan (48) and Raju Saroj (32). During the interrogation, crime branch officers learnt the involvement of Siddiqi after which he has been made an accused in the case. Siddiqi runs a oil smuggling racket and is active in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

According to the crime branch, during the transportation of oil from JNPT to Mahul, the gang members removes the oil and fills the tanker with water, after the pilferage the gang seals the tankers.

"We have so far recovered around 14,800 litres of the adulterated oil, worth Rs 5.18 lakh,” said police inspector Asha Korake.

After the tankers left from JNPT the accused would park the tankers at designated locations from where the other accused would lift thousands of litres of oil from the tanker then after filling water tanker would continue their journey to refinery.