Diesel theft in South Africa is major problem for the transport, agricultural and civil engineering industries. Although there are no known statistics about the scale and volumes of theft of diesel fuel from the tanks of vehicles in South Africa it is thought to be pervasive and affects most vehicle owners at some time.
Trucks are vulnerable to diesel theft when standing at long border queues, port congestion, delivery and loading queues overnight rest stops, truck yards, repair shops and filling stations. Farm vehicles standing in lands overnight and in unlit and unlocked farm yards. Heavy equipment that overnights at sometimes remote and unsecured construction sites.
Theft volumes can run from staff skimming a few litres here and there to organized crimes on an industrial scale where every tank in every vehicle is drained in a night.
Sometimes staff are bribed, harassed, threatened or extorted to provide access to the diesel in the tanks and look the other way when theft takes place.
The fuel theft problem in South Africa is worsened by the general poor state of law enforcement and low successful prosecution rate.
It is a far better strategy to secure the fuel in your tanks and prevent theft by siphoning, drain plug drainage and intercepting the pickup and return pipes. This removes temptation for staff members and protects them from intimidation by outside thieves as it makes the theft impossible. Also, if the Diesel Guard unit has had a tampering theft attempt incident on it there is often visible damage to the unit which then alerts management to the potential problem. A feature of the Diesel Guard range is that they require no maintenance and continuously provide active fuel protection.
The below collection of articles are some success stories in the fight against diesel theft in South Africa: https://truckandfreight.co.za/tag/diesel-theft/
Diesel fuel theft is also an international problem. An interesting statistic out there is that 23% of the truck fleet in Sweden is fitted with an anti-siphoning unit on the filler neck. It is really interesting that such a wealthy and sophisticated economy still faces the problem of theft from tanks.