Gasoline theft

Fuel theft has shown to amount to as high as $2.1 billion a year in the United States of America.

The thief will usually use some form of decoy to prevent nearby witnesses from noticing the lack of payment until they have left the station.

Common decoys include pretending to press the wrong buttons after the credit card are swiped or having multiple people get gas at the same time, with one paying for another person and the other running off with both cars.

With typical gas thefts costing station owners in the range of $50 per incident, many stores have fought back by installing better video equipment and requiring prepayment.

Since the oil price increases after 2004, a surge in fuel theft has occurred,[citation needed] which has included license plate thefts (when gasoline is stolen with the vehicle having the original tags and the vehicle tags identifying the registered owner).