Stolen Fuel Found at SE Gas Station

Police said yesterday that they are investigating a Chevron station in Southeast Washington where they found 7,000 gallons of diesel fuel belonging to a tanker that had been stolen at gunpoint Friday in Baltimore.

The fuel was discovered in an underground storage tank at the station at 3011 Martin Luther King Ave., near where police found the stolen and abandoned truck, Baltimore police spokesman Troy Harris said. The fuel had been unloaded by a pump on the stolen truck, he said.

"We know the gas was found there," Harris said. "We don't know if it was planned or by coincidence."

Harris and D.C. police officer Israel James declined to say how close authorities are to an arrest.

The episode began at 5 a.m. Friday when the driver of the tanker, who was headed for Southern Maryland, was held up at a fuel depot by an assailant with a handgun, who then drove away in the vehicle, police said.

After a search by authorities, the tanker was found along Malcolm X Avenue near Interstate 295, missing about 7,000 gallons of No. 2 diesel fuel. The fuel has since been returned to the owner of the tanker, Baltimore Truck Lines of Glen Burnie.

Property records list the owner of the station as Ali Kazemzadeh. Calls to Kazemzadeh's home yesterday were not returned.

The theft prompted fears of terrorism, but they were quickly dispelled by homeland security and FBI officials. The stolen fuel has a retail value of about $20,000. With oil prices rising, such thefts are becoming more common, experts said.

No. 2 diesel is a high-sulfur fuel that is used as heating oil and to power tractors and other off-road vehicles. Gas stations do not normally sell it, which prompted an employee of Baltimore Truck Lines to speculate yesterday that either the hijacker or the gas station owner mistook the load for conventional gasoline.

"I don't believe the owner of the gas station knew what the product was or where it came from," said the employee, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the theft.

Harris called that a "very plausible theory" but did not comment further.