As the price of fuel increases virtually on a daily basis, thieves are becoming more resourceful, they stealing number plates and even disguising number plates with sticky tape in order to stay ahead of the automatic number plate recognition systems (ANPR).
There has been an unprecedented rise in the amount thefts taking place at petrol filling stations, despite many attempts by the owners of some filling stations to combat this crime wave, there are always going to a certain amount of smaller filling stations who do not have the resources to install such security measures.
But even the most sophisticated systems where the ANPR checks the number plate of a vehicle before the pump can be switched on cannot stop all of the thieves, especially if they have just stolen the number plate or have altered their own number plate with sticky tape, this is known as stripping.
A spokesman from insurance company NTU Mutual said: “It’s a new crime as far as we’re concerned. We had not seen domestic oil being taken until about six months ago. Thieves will steal anything that’s valuable.” Fearless robbers are actually driving tankers right into farms and large back gardens that have the oil tanks in view – and siphoning off up to £1,000 worth of fuel."
“There have been over 100 claims in the last six months, at a combined cost of over £50,000”
Source [Auto Express]
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