The gas struggle is real, so real in fact, people are installing trap doors in their vehicles to steal fuel. A sneaky set of thieves hit a Houston gas station multiple times and very elaborately stole fuel straight from the ground.

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Owner Jerry Thayil had thieves hit his gas station four times in one week.

How Did The Store Catch On?

After noticing a troubling deficiency in his store 3 days in a row he began looking through his surveillance cameras, and that was when he noticed something troubling.

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A video shows one van pulling over fuel refill tanks in the ground, where they would be parked for up to 15 minutes during high traffic times, and that's when they would strike. Jerry suspects they had a trap door at the bottom of their van where they could quickly open up and slide a hose down into the fuel tanks.
"They would put a hose down there and suck it out with a pump," Thayil said.

Subtle Details

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Aside from the green Dodge Caravan, another detail Thayil noticed was a black Porshe SUV parked, acting as surveillance for the thieves.

Jumping Into Action

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The thieves came back for round four and that's when Jerry jumped into action. He ran outside towards the van but it quickly took off. "I needed to have them see me to scare them away."

Over the span of 4 trips to the gas station, the thieves came out with 350 gallons of diesel and 1,000 gallons of gas, $5,000 worth of fuel. The thieves are still at large.

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