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ARCHIVED - Almeria crook gets 14 years for selling fake petrol to Murcia gas stations
The man was sentenced to 15 years back in 2021, but his prison term has been reduced
An Almeria businessman known as Emilio T. has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for selling thousands of litres of adulterated fuel throughout Spain, but especially in service stations in the Region of Murcia and Almeria.
Emilio T. was originally sentenced to 15 years back in February 2021 by the Provincial Court of Almeria, which has now been reduced to 14 years by the Supreme Court (SC) in a judgment dated November 17, 2022.
The Supreme Court also sentenced him to pay fines of more than 8 million euros for money laundering, forgery of commercial documents and four offences against the Public Treasury.
The businessman defrauded more than 4.26 million euros with the sale of diesel mixed with oils at petrol stations through the collaboration of front companies, some of them fictitious, according to the ruling.
This was not the first time that Emilio T. had faced offences related to the sale of products that were not what they should have been. In 1995, he was convicted of smuggling by an examining court in Almeria. Specifically, he had claimed to have exported 45,000kg of sugar to Morocco, after obtaining a subsidy from the European Union, when what he actually sent was marble powder.
Known colloquially as the ‘Fake’ Diesel King, Emilio T. managed to sell impure petrol to gas stations in 
the Region of Murcia and other parts of southern Spain between 2007 and 2010 through a feat of “formidable financial engineering” which was based on hundreds of transactions between companies, most of them non-existent, which were deactivated by the Guardia Civil and Customs Surveillance with all their criminal network. The businessman acquired tax-free oils for trade from companies in EU countries (including France and Italy) and mixed them with diesel.
the Region of Murcia and other parts of southern Spain between 2007 and 2010 through a feat of “formidable financial engineering” which was based on hundreds of transactions between companies, most of them non-existent, which were deactivated by the Guardia Civil and Customs Surveillance with all their criminal network. The businessman acquired tax-free oils for trade from companies in EU countries (including France and Italy) and mixed them with diesel.The resulting product, a mixture of 25% oil and 75% diesel, was distributed by service stations and transport companies, as if it were diesel, a product taxed with the Special Tax on Hydrocarbons, if its final destination is in Spain.
The businessman obtained the oil from a used oil regeneration plant based in Madrid through several companies, one of them dedicated to the purchase and sale of diesel oil, and two others dedicated to the transport of diesel oil and derivatives, which had a fleet of vehicles and also commercial networks.
The product resulting from this mixture was sold as diesel oil through his own commercial networks, but "clandestinely", i.e. without invoicing, with the help of another collaborator. In addition, the businessman, together with the person who sold him the oil, drew up documents such as delivery notes and international road haulage contracts. The aim was to make it appear that the product was destined for foreign companies.
The three companies were in the name of frontmen, one of whom organised the transport of the oil tankers from Madrid to a warehouse in the Almeria municipality of Cantoria, where the oil was mixed for sale to third parties.
One of the people accused of aiding Emilio T. in his fraud admitted that the mixtures were sold at petrol stations in Madrid, Cuenca, Alicante and Murcia. In the inspection that the Guardia Civil carried out in May 2010 in a company in Molina de Segura, a mixture with 28.3% of oil appeared in the petrol station, when shortly before a tanker sent by the businessman had left its product.
The court also notes that, after the search carried out in the industrial building in Cantoria in June 2010, the criminals’ Modus Operandi changed, so that “instead of mixing the oil with the diesel at the company’s facilities”, the fuel and oil were mixed “directly in the tanks of the service stations themselves”, while an external company was contracted to transport the oil.
At the end of May 2010, the agents intercepted a lorry coming from one of the convicted person’s companies, which was destined for another company in Cartagena, in whose installations they found a machine for mixing diesel with oil.
You might also like: How to save money on petrol and diesel in Spain
Images: Guardia Civil
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