Police nab suspected fuel thief

Portland, OR, police have made an arrest in the case of stolen diesel fuel from area trucks.

According to KGW news in Portland, which first reported the story, Thomas Ray Synoground was picked up yesterday following a tip police received from a viewer of the news station who had seen the initial report.

Police believed Synoground was using a special big rig to rip off fuel from other truckers. According to the initial KGW report, one Portland trucking company was hit three times, stealing thousands of dollars in fuel.

After being hit twice by the fuel thieves, Costa Oro International installed security cameras to monitor the truck lot. And just hours later, on July 1, the cameras captured the thieves as they struck once again. The cameras captured images of a big rig specially equipped with four fuel tanks, two on each side, to enable thieves to siphon off enough fuel to fill all four tanks.

In the three-hour fuel heist, more than $3,500 in diesel fuel was sucked from the tanks of at least five semi’s which were discovered with empty tanks the following morning, according to Arianna Harstrom, owner of Costa Oro.

“That's a huge expense for truckers,” Hartstrom told KGW news, "especially where fuel is today.”