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Miguel Guerrero, 42, of Hialeah, Florida filled an unapproved fuel tank nearly as large as the entire bed of his pick-up truck with diesel paid for with fraudulent credit cards, police said. |
Driver pumps 207 gallons of diesel and pays with fake card, cops say
Miguel Guerrero, 42, of Hialeah, Florida filled an unapproved fuel tank nearly as large as the entire bed of his pick-up truck with diesel paid for with fraudulent credit cards, police said.
Tonya Alanez Sun Sentinel
It takes a long time to pump 207 gallons of fuel.
And that’s what caught a Davie police officer’s attention Wednesday morning — the man in a green pick-up truck sure was taking a long time to fuel up at the pumps.
The man was at pump #11 at the Tom Thumb gas station at 4600 Dykes Road.
Officer Andres Rodriguez knew there’d been a rash of people getting their credit cards cloned at the station. He also knew pump #11 was one of two pumps where the fraudulent cards usually were used, according to a police report.
The pickup held a large, "fuel bladder," police said (Davie Police Department)
When Rodriguez, who was parked nearby watching the suspicious activity with binoculars, went inside the station he found that the man had made six $100 purchases of diesel, about 34.5 gallons each for a total of 207 gallons — much more than the tank of a Ford F-350 could hold, the report said.
The clerk showed Rodriguez she had already sensed something fishy about the $100 purchases being made by the person driving the green Ford with tag number IVBQ24. She had stapled together five receipts showing similar transaction made on Feb. 1.
When the officer approached Miguel Guerrero he told him he could search the truck. Underneath a tarp in the back, as suspected, Rodriguez found a “fuel bladder,” or a large unapproved fuel tank, “almost as large as the entire bed of the truck,” an arrest report said.
In Guerrero’s wallet, Rodriguez found two counterfeit credit cards, the report said.
Surveillance video from the station showed that Guerrero had committed the same crime on Feb. 3.
Guerrero, 42, of Hialeah, was arrested for the fraudulent use of credit cards and the illegal transportation of fuel.