3 suspects accused of stealing 18,000 gallons of fuel in Garland arrested
GARLAND, Texas - Garland police said an organized fuel theft ring stole 18,000 gallons of fuel from a gas station using a souped-up box truck to commit the crime.
Three people have been arrested.
It's believed the group committed similar crimes across the state.
Employees at Rickey Rockets gas station, located at the corner of Jupiter Road and Miller Road, are the ones who were on high alert when the white box truck began visiting multiple times.
They alerted Garland police, prompting a multi-city fuel theft investigation spanning at least four counties across the state.
Employees noticed the suspicious activity of the same box truck making multiple purchases and contacted Garland police last month.
"Detectives were keeping an eye on this vehicle because it was named a suspect vehicle," Garland PD officer Felicia Jones said.
Thursday, Garland PD detectives located the box truck believed to be involved in the theft ring.
Source: Garland PD
Investigators tracked it as it traveled northeast, first to Franklin County, and then to Bowie County, which is 150 miles from Garland.
Police said the thieves had 1,500 gallons of stolen fuel in their tanks from a station in Bowie County when Garland detectives and state troopers stepped in to arrest the three men.
Investigators said the box truck had an internal storage system.
Police are still trying to total up the exact dollar value of stolen fuel.
"This goes over four different counties from these individuals," Jones said. "There is no telling how many different locations, and how many times, and how much was taken each time they made a trip."
Featured
4 fuel theft suspects arrested at Dallas gas station
According to police, the suspects used three vehicles, including a modified pickup truck that had an external fuel tank.
The three suspects were identified as 30-year-old Julio Benitez-Hernandez, 42-year-old Joxan Santos- Legon, and 30-year-old Rafael Vazquez-Unzaga.
Garland PD worked alongside the Texas Financial Crimes Intelligence Center, who told FOX 4 the men manipulated the pump, slowing the meter down per penny, while the fuel was pumped at a normal rate.
Santos-Legon and Vazquez-Unzaga have Florida addresses, according to jail records.
But Garland police said they believe two of the three suspects were staying in Garland.
Jeray Morris works next door to Rickey Rockets, and said he recognized the picture of the white box truck Garland police released.
Morris said, just last week, a white box truck was accompanied with a food truck.
"I witnessed the food truck face this way and a box truck face the other way, and it looked like one was helping the other one. They were all under the truck," Morris recalled.
Morris remembered both being parked at a pump for an extended period of time.
He even went to ask if he could purchase food from the truck.
"And I was like, ‘Hey, are you open for business?’ That was my question. but they were standoffish. They didn’t promote the business, you would say," he said.
But Morris had no clue 18,000 gallons were now gone just steps of where he works every day.
The three suspects are in the Bowie County Jail and will be transferred to the Garland jail eventually, where then they will be charged in Dallas County.