A gas station in Tamaulipas that stole two liters of fuel for every 20 it sold was shut down last week by the federal consumer protection agency.

Profeco chief Ricardo Sheffield Padilla told reporters at the presidential press conference on Monday that during an operation supported by the National Guard, his agency closed 240 pumps at 20 stations that were either selling short liters of fuel or didn’t give permission for their pumps to be inspected.

“On November 13, we found a real scoundrel . . . in Tamaulipas. The eight hoses were giving two liters less for every 20 liters. They were stealing 10% of the fuel,” he said.

Sheffield said that 12 pumps were shut down earlier last week at a gas station in Jalisco that was stealing just over 0.6 liters for every 20 sold, while 12 pumps were closed at a Campeche station that was only giving motorists 19.5 liters for every 20 they purchased.

The Profeco chief said he couldn’t disclose the exact locations of the gas stations because they are currently under investigation by the federal Attorney General’s Office.

Sheffield said that a new, more sophisticated method of fuel pump tampering was detected during last week’s operation and will be investigated by authorities.

It was alleged in January that scores of gas stations were using an illegal software plug-in to manipulate the sales figures they report to Pemex and tax authorities, and conceal the sale of stolen fuel.

Sheffield also revealed that Profeco had discovered that the dirtiest gas station washrooms in Mexico are in Zacatecas city at a station run by the company Distribuidora de Combustibles de Zacatecas.

“They take away the desire to go to the bathroom . . . They don’t charge but you couldn’t charge for the bathrooms; hopefully they improve the service,” Sheffield said.

The Profeco director said the cleanest gas station washrooms in the country were found at Emerald Gas in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur.

Source: Milenio (sp), Zacatecas en Imagen (sp)