Theft from oil and gas pipelines is a criminal offense

Fuel theft - article of the Criminal Code

Theft of someone else's property from a gas or oil pipeline is punishable in accordance with Part 3 of Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Energy sources are an important resource. As a rule, raw materials are stolen for several purposes, namely:

• subsequent benefit;
• personal use;
• resumption of resource supply in case of outage.

Depending on the volume and consequences of the theft of energy resources, administrative or criminal liability may be provided as punishment.

It happens that one crime can accidentally lead to another. For example, other people may suffer due to an illegal connection to a gas pipeline. The fact is that the illegal use of gas transportation communications is not recorded in any way on the maps of various public utilities. Workers may stumble upon an unknown crash. For example, when carrying out maintenance work or other types of excavations in a place where there is an illegal connection.

Such connections are not reliable. This significantly increases the risk when working in such areas. Both the owner of the site and employees of services carrying out certain activities can suffer from an explosion. In case of death caused by negligence, the case will be considered under Art. 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - unintentional actions resulting in the death of a person. They are punishable by imprisonment for up to 5 years.

Theft of gas from a gas pipeline

Most often, such theft takes the form of illegal connection to a resource source, for example, to gas pipelines, without prior permission and approval from the organization providing supplies to the given territory.

Most often, illegal connections occur from individuals who have large debts to pay for used gas. Due to the fact that they were deprived of the source of the resource, they decide to smuggle it into their home without permission, instead of solving the problem with the supplier by paying off the debt.

Note! Due to the size of the fines provided for illegal connection to a gas pipeline, it will cost many times more than formalizing an agreement between a citizen and a gas transportation organization.

In addition to administrative or criminal proceedings, the violator will be forced to pay for the use of gas. As a rule, payments are calculated in accordance with the capacity of the connected equipment and taking into account its round-the-clock operation. The period is determined from the date of the last inspection. If it cannot be established, then a period of six months is taken.

Using a standard gas stove will cost the criminal at least 35 thousand, a gas water heater 45 thousand, and a heating boiler 50 thousand rubles. The unauthorized connection is dismantled.

Diesel fuel theft

There are frequent situations in which diesel fuel is stolen by transport workers. Such actions are carried out for the purpose of personal use or enrichment through its subsequent sale. In practice, fuel theft occurs among drivers engaged in intercity or international flights, or from railway trains as drivers.

Quite often there is a preliminary conspiracy. A group of people organizes and steals the property of an enterprise, thus causing serious damage to it. Sometimes the scale of thefts can be enormous, and production managers or the managers themselves are involved in the crime.

Experts: theft from oil pipelines is decreasing, but becoming more sophisticated

Sergey Vorobyov, Sergey Alikhashkin, March 11, 2021, 13:26 — REGNUM

Experts: theft from oil pipelines is decreasing, but becoming more sophisticated

58.mvd.rf

Introduction

Criminal (unauthorized) tapping into main pipelines carrying oil and petroleum products has become a highly profitable and low-risk criminal business in Russia. According to statistics, the probability of being imprisoned for fuel thieves is about 3% of the number of detected crimes on the pipe. The volume of counterfeit fuel is estimated at more than $6 billion annually. In a number of regions, large criminal groups have formed around fuel theft, with stable connections in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office and the courts.

The inexplicable humanity of Russian justice allows the courts to release caught burglars from punishment or assign them suspended and minor sentences of imprisonment. As a result, despite all the efforts of law enforcement agencies and security units of transport workers, the criminal pressure against main pipelines does not weaken; the number of connections into main oil product pipelines has been decreasing at an unacceptably slow pace for the last six years.

The situation with fuel theft in the world

The global illegal market for oil and petroleum products is estimated at $133 billion a year. The structure of the black market repeats the structure of the official oil industry: production, transportation, refining, sales. The difference is that instead of government and legal private entities, this business is carried out by organized criminal groups.

The distribution of illegal market volumes by country is estimated as follows:

Experts: theft from oil pipelines is decreasing, but becoming more sophisticated

TVTEK

Source: TVTEK

The largest share of illegal trafficking occurs in Mexico, where large criminal cartels operate.

In Mexico, the worst disaster happened as a result of a criminal tie-in. On January 19, 2021, more than a hundred people collected gasoline into cans, which was pouring out of a criminal connection into the pipeline. For some unknown reason, the gasoline caught fire. At least 85 people died in the fire and its consequences.

Nigerian criminal groups are engaged in piracy - attacking tankers in the Gulf of Guinea. Typically, the crew is locked in the hold, and the oil is transferred to small ships that transport the fuel to neighboring countries.

Iraqi Kurdish paramilitaries, without the knowledge of the central government in Baghdad, extract oil using traditional methods on their land and then smuggle it to Turkey.

In May 2021, Italian police detained an international gang of fuel thieves, responsible for the theft of tens of millions of liters of petroleum products. According to the investigation, many members of the group had experience working for foreign oil companies, which allowed them to steal fuel using complex and expensive equipment; branches of illegal pipelines were laid over several kilometers. To get to the pipe, the criminals used a drill worth 200,000 euros, using high-tech valves that measure fuel pressure in the pipelines and signal the right moment to make a fence and avoid detection by oil company sensors.

Criminal connections are constantly being identified in Latvia, Poland and Ukraine.

The thieves of oil and petroleum products in Russia are well-coordinated criminal groups, often from the 90s. Today their business has been strengthened due to the necessary connections in the courts, the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Almost every region has its own organized crime group, or even several. For example, in the Leningrad region in 2021, at least seven groups were talked about on the highways.

In the country as a whole, the turnover of illegal diesel fuel reaches 4 million tons per year. According to the Russian Fuel Union, the volume of counterfeit diesel fuel is at least 30-40%.

Statistics of criminal tie-ins in Russia

The diagram shows statistics on criminal connections to main oil pipelines (MT) and main oil product pipelines (MPPP) according to data from Transneft PJSC, although the largest Russian vertically integrated oil companies, such as Lukoil, Rosneft, and other producing oil companies are also involved in transportation.

The graph shows that in recent years, criminals have been more attracted to MNPPs, the petroleum products seized from which can be sent to the market without processing.

Experts: theft from oil pipelines is decreasing, but becoming more sophisticated

PJSC Transneft

It is also clear that the number of criminal tie-ins decreased rapidly until 2012 - 2013. Over the past eight years, the effectiveness of combating criminal tie-ins has decreased, especially with tie-ins in MNPP - the number of tie-ins in 2021 is as close as possible to the number of tie-ins in 2012.

The table shows data on the number of criminal tie-ins in MNPP by leading regions (in Moscow, the main tie-ins are made in the territory of “New Moscow”).

Leading regions in the number of criminal incidents in MNPP in 2018 - 2021.

Source: PJSC Transneft

Transneft Vice President for Security Vyacheslav Skvortsov:

— In the Moscow region, oil products are stolen as a result of tapping. The region is home to the Moscow air hub, which is supplied mainly by pipe. There is a very large turnover of petroleum products here. At the same time, not all cottage villages in the Moscow region are connected to the gas supply system. Petroleum products, including diluted aircraft fuel, are sold as heating oil.

Development of insertion technology as an indicator of the formation of large criminal structures

Transneft Vice President for Security Vyacheslav Skvortsov comments on the situation surrounding the criminal business on the pipeline:

“Over the past decade, the problem of unauthorized tappings has been aggravated by the fact that the methods for committing them have undergone changes. They have become more sophisticated and technologically and technologically advanced.

Attackers use, for example, special equipment for horizontal directional drilling, for undermining and for the construction of long tunnels. The taps are equipped with measuring instruments, systems for smoothing pressure fluctuations, and solenoid valves for remote control systems for shut-off valves.

Over the past three years, 19 tunnels to main pipelines, manufactured by offenders, have been discovered. For the purpose of theft, the laying of long (often more than a kilometer) branches is increasingly being used. And if before 2008 the share of tie-ins with bends did not exceed 20% of their total number, then in 2021 this figure was about 80%. 32 of them were more than one kilometer in length.

According to the Director of the Security Department of Transneft PJSC Alexander Savin, “tapping is an expensive pleasure. We calculated the cost of manufacturing one of the inserts we discovered: it turned out to be about 30 million rubles.”

Igor Yushkov, leading specialist at the National Analytical Security Foundation, states:

— The modern specificity of the stage of these cuttings is that for their implementation they use professional equipment, which is quite expensive, so buying it just to crash once and get caught is, of course, not profitable for them. Therefore, those who engage in such activities assume that they will do this for a long time, steal a lot and, accordingly, receive a large income. And the equipment will pay for itself for them.

The cost of equipment for tapping amounts to tens of thousands of euros and is purchased from legal suppliers of equipment for oil production in the West.

The length of some branches reaches several kilometers, and the hose itself in a reinforcing casing can lie at a depth of up to 12 meters. From the insert there is a branch to a special container (rubber-fabric or plastic). Today, many tie-ins are automated. The valve, which allows pumping out diesel, is opened and closed remotely using a mobile phone application. Filling sensors are installed in the container itself. Collection points are equipped with webcams that operate online.

Obviously, only large structures, whose leaders are confident in their impunity even if ordinary perpetrators are caught, can afford to spend multimillion-dollar expenses on equipment for installing and operating taps. For example, in the city of Pokhvistnevo, Samara Region, FSB officers in 2021 identified an illegal oil refinery on the territory of the Voskhod LLC oil depot. The refinery operated without a license and in violation of all environmental standards. The technological process involved five 70-ton tanks, a 60-ton reactor, two 70-ton coolers and three 400-ton tanks, combined into a single production cycle. According to Rostechnadzor, the plant was capable of processing up to 3 thousand tons of oil per month.

It is significant that what brought the federals to the clandestine plant was not the very fact of the existence of an illegal refinery, but the discovery of a connection to the Nizhnevartovsk-Kurgan-Kuibyshev oil pipeline.

From the tie-in through the territories of other enterprises, a plastic outlet stretched for 2 km, ending at the territory of the oil depot of Management Company Laguna LLC. Three containers with 2 thousand cubic meters of oil were discovered here. m and a boiler with stolen oil. In total, oil worth 11 million rubles was discovered. According to preliminary estimates, since the beginning of 2021, more than 18.5 thousand tons of oil worth over 400 million rubles have been stolen and sent to oil refineries in Samara, Orenburg and Saratov.

When criminal burglars are detained, ordinary perpetrators fall into the hands of law enforcement officers. The seized property of criminals is, as a rule, vehicles for transporting fuel, high-pressure hoses, tools for organizing tie-ins, and surveillance cameras. Horizontal drilling rigs worth tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars and other expensive equipment very rarely fall into the hands of law enforcement officers.

This fact indicates the activities of well-organized criminal groups on the territory of the Russian Federation, which have the ability to skillfully organize the creation of an insert in compliance with all precautions.

Legal basis for punishing criminal burglars

The legal basis for punishing criminal burglars is based on the articles of the Criminal Code:

- Article 215.3. “Unauthorized connection to oil pipelines, oil product pipelines and gas pipelines or rendering them unusable”;

- Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. "Theft";

- Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. “Organization of a criminal community (criminal organization) or participation in it (it).”

Despite the evidence of the commission of criminal tappings and theft of oil and diesel through them by organized groups of criminals, the courts almost never apply the most severe article 210 in cases of tappers (the minimum term of imprisonment for participation in a criminal community is 5 years), even in cases where All members of the criminal community find themselves in the dock.

Due to the non-application of Art. 210 the organizers of criminal groups feel complete impunity, since they themselves do not personally arrange tie-ins and do not drive fuel trucks with stolen fuel.

The situation is constantly getting worse and its consequences can be very sad. In Mexico, for example, due to large-scale fuel thefts, the government had to shut down several main pipelines from January 1, 2021, switching to supplying the country with fuel by tank trucks and rail transport. This caused a shortage of gasoline in many regions, including in the capital, Mexico City.

According to Art. 215.3 clause 2 “Unauthorized connection to main oil pipelines, oil product pipelines and gas pipelines” is punishable by a fine of 200 thousand rubles to imprisonment for up to 4 years. The “rubber” size of punishment for the same act leaves wide scope for a criminal agreement between judges and criminal communities. A fine of 200 thousand rubles is generally an insignificant punishment for criminal burglars; they only spend many times more on high-pressure hoses.

A no less “rubber” amount of punishment is provided for in Art. 158 clause 3. According to this article, “Theft” committed from an oil pipeline, oil product pipeline, or gas pipeline is punishable by a fine in the amount of one hundred thousand rubles to imprisonment for up to six years. Theft committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale is punishable by a fine from the income of the convicted person for a period of up to five years or by imprisonment for up to ten years.

In fact, all articles of the Criminal Code used by the courts allow criminals to be released with suspended sentences and fines that amount to a tiny fraction of their earnings from fuel theft.

Let us note that when the court applies the “Theft” article, the maximum that investigators can prove in court is an admission of the theft of the last barrel of fuel, with which the attackers were caught red-handed. All previously stolen fuel has long been burned in the engine engines, and the courts refuse to take into account the possible volumes of stolen goods when assigning punishment.

Law enforcement practice

Almost all “pipe” cases are held in courts under Article 158 (“Theft”) with minimal punishment for criminal burglars. Here's a typical example. Four Malakhov brothers were caught cutting into the Penza-Saransk oil pipeline. At the time of the arrest, there were several canisters of fuel worth only 38 thousand rubles. The investigation established that the brothers stole fuel regularly throughout the year in different groups. The case went to the chairman of the Luninsky District Court, Alexander Rybakov. He did not note in his decision such fundamental points as: “a series of thefts”, “in conspiracy”, “a group of persons”, “different composition”. The judge did not try to estimate how much fuel was stolen and sold by the brothers before their arrest. Sentence: 1 to 2 years probation.

In August 2021, the case of the “Sportsmen” gang, which for many years was among the largest criminal groups involved in tapping and selling stolen fuel, broke out in the Leningrad region. Judge Dmitry Petrov from the Tosnensky District Court in the courtroom released all gang members with suspended sentences, ignoring the three-year work of the investigation.

Recently, cases have been recorded in which high-ranking law enforcement officers provide protection for fuel thieves. For example, in the Leningrad region in August 2021, a criminal group was discovered and detained under the auspices of the head of the police department in the Kirishi district, Dmitry Timchenko. An organized criminal community operated under the leadership of Timchenko, the Investigative Committee of the Leningrad Region reported then. The participation of police officers, according to the investigation, was expressed in concealing criminal activities and providing information to the direct perpetrators about planned operational-search activities.

The arrest of Dmitry Timchenko, two of his subordinates and 13 other members of the criminal community became the largest operation of law enforcement agencies in the fight against fuel theft in the Leningrad region. The operation was prepared in the strictest secrecy. It was attended by operatives from the “M” unit of the FSB, which oversees the law enforcement unit, investigators from the department for investigating particularly important cases of the Investigative Committee for the Leningrad Region, and employees of the FSB Economic Security Service. In order to detain fuel thieves in Kirishi, the Investigative Committee suspended the investigation of other cases.

However, in March 2021, arrest in a pre-trial detention center was replaced by house arrest for Timchenko and his accomplices. And in December, he and some members of his gang were released from house arrest.

“If Timchenko gets away with it, the fight against criminal tie-ins and fuel theft in the Leningrad region can be given up,” law enforcement sources previously told RAPSI. The police will stop even pretending to catch fuel thieves. The state, with its own hands, contributes to the creation of powerful criminal organizations with colossal financial resources, which, as in Mexico, will soon be able to enter into open armed confrontation with security forces demoralized by the open encouragement of crime by the authorities.

Transneft Vice President for Security Vyacheslav Skvortsov is forced to admit:

— A very small number of offenders reach the court; swindlers feel impunity. Hence the high recidivism rate in the sphere of criminal trafficking in oil and petroleum products.

Director of the Security Department of Transneft PJSC Alexander Savin is less pessimistic.

“Several years ago, the courts were quite lenient towards criminals caught making unauthorized taps and stealing fuel. Often, those convicted received suspended sentences. For example, in 2012, only 18% of convicts received actual sentences. And this did not at all contribute to the prevention of such offenses - rather the opposite. A few years ago the trend began to change. Already in 2015, the percentage of those who received actual punishment exceeded 68% of the number of those convicted. It is also encouraging that in many criminal cases the entire criminal chain is revealed and punishment is received not only by the direct perpetrators, but also by the customers, organizers of crimes, and leaders of criminal groups.

The data for the Moscow region is indicative. Over three years (2015 - 2017), 143 criminal incidents were recorded in the region. 115 criminal cases were initiated based on them, while 25 were refused. Only 9 episodes were sent to the court, of which 7 were considered, 9 persons were brought to punishment. The graph shows a “funnel of punishment.”

Moreover, in all isolated cases, punishment with symbolic terms is received only by ordinary performers, and the entire chain from performers to customers and patrons remains undisclosed. For fuel barons, their criminal business is practically safe.

Another example. In the Bryansk region, members of the “Karachev” criminal group stole 730 tons of diesel fuel worth 31.3 million rubles. The investigation established that the criminals laid a 700-meter long underground pipe to the oil product pipeline, and controlled the pumping of fuel remotely via smartphones. One of the accused was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison with a fine to the state in the amount of 100 thousand rubles. Steal 31.3 million rubles. and paying a fine of 100 thousand for it is good business.

The humanity of Russian justice towards fuel thieves is amazing. All over the world, the very fact of pipeline damage is considered a serious crime. In most countries, criminal tampering is punishable by sentences of up to 15 years. In China - up to the death penalty. For this reason, in Europe and China, the problem of tie-ins practically does not exist. In Russia, fuel thieves are released with suspended sentences on the grounds that they “did not have time” to sell the stolen fuel. In January 2021, three car dealers in Vsevolzhsk received “conditional probation” for sluggishness in selling fuel, although they stole 200 thousand rubles worth of diesel. In November 2021, in the Luninsky district of the Penza region, thieves received a “conditional sentence” for a series of thefts of diesel fuel from a section of an oil product pipeline excavated for repair work]. And in September 2021, the Spassky District Court of the Ryazan Region sentenced to suspended sentences three men who arranged a criminal tie-in into the Transneft oil pipeline - the attackers made the tie-in, but “did not have time to pump out the oil.”

“Funnel of punishment” for criminal burglars in the Moscow region

Experts: theft from oil pipelines is decreasing, but becoming more sophisticated

IRTTEK and PJSC Transneft

Security of main pipelines carrying oil and petroleum products

Transneft Vice President for Security Vyacheslav Skvortsov explains how the company combats criminal connections:

— We examine adjacent suspicious objects, industrial zones, free-standing structures where storage tanks and containers can be placed. Is there an access road there, is there frequent traffic there that could be used for transportation. There is a whole set of signs that allows us to detect the presence of criminal activity related to the oil pipeline.”

Director of the Security Department of Transneft PJSC Alexander Savin:

“We are forced to attract significant resources, both human and material, to combat unauthorized tappings. The security of more than 68 thousand km of pipelines is provided by 472 mobile departmental security groups of the company. In addition, 69 search and technical groups of security departments of Transneft system organizations (OST), equipped with modern search equipment, are engaged in a targeted search for unauthorized taps.

We also use the capabilities of leak detection systems, which allow us to significantly narrow the search area for unauthorized tappings, and in-line diagnostics as one of the most effective methods for identifying unauthorized tappings.

Prospects for combating criminal tampering

The prospects for combating criminal tie-ins in Transneft are associated, first of all, with tightening legislation so that fuel thieves are fully responsible for the damage caused.

Hope for such a change in legislation is given by the position of the State Duma Committee on Energy, where they agree that the bill currently being discussed to introduce criminal liability for unauthorized connection to pipelines should be supplemented with a rule for the guilty party to reimburse the pipeline owner for the costs of eliminating the connection and its consequences.

Transneft Vice President for Security Vyacheslav Skvortsov:

— The costs of eliminating the tie-in, compensation for damage caused to the environment, losses from equipment downtime and cessation of pumping during the period of emergency restoration work - we try to take all this into account. But the courts do not always take this into account. Moreover, Transneft is often blamed for the negative consequences of criminal connections. Next year, a new edition of the methodology for calculating losses will be adopted for use in the investigation of criminal cases initiated on the theft of oil and petroleum products or damage to a main oil pipeline facility due to an unauthorized tap.

Another direction in the fight against criminal tie-ins is to block distribution channels for stolen fuel. Director of the Security Department of Transneft PJSC Alexander Savin:

— Why is the issue of criminal connections still so pressing? One of the main reasons is that the country does not yet have a law that would ensure transparency in the turnover of hydrocarbons. Until this problem is solved, there will always be a demand for oil and fuel obtained illegally, and criminals, accordingly, will try to look for ways and means to steal them.

The process of forming the legislative framework is currently ongoing.

Alexander Savin:

— In pursuance of the decision of the interdepartmental meeting at the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, joint work was organized with the Legislative Assembly of the Leningrad Region to amend federal legislation to strengthen the responsibility of offenders and Article 215.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Joint work with legislators of the Leningrad region and subsequently with deputies of the State Duma contributed to increasing criminal liability for unauthorized connection to oil, petroleum products and gas pipelines. So far, the effectiveness of the innovations has not been fully demonstrated, and, in our opinion, measures to expose and bring to justice the organizers of thefts are not enough. But if we take the situation as a whole, then there is certainly progress.

According to Alexander Savin, Dagestan used to be “the talk of the town.” They said that there was complete chaos there, nothing could be done - nothing would work anyway. The Transneft security service “...did not give up and continued to work together with regional authorities, security forces and law enforcement agencies. Several years ago, the number of criminal incidents across the republic numbered in the dozens, but for 2021 we have only one incident...”

“Another example is the Samara region. Previously, the region thundered in terms of the number of unauthorized tappings and the volume of thefts of hydrocarbons (especially oil). The Samara region is the center of oil refineries; the region contains a significant number of abandoned oil depots, mini-factories, and closed industrial zones. There you can put a diversion from a criminal connection, hide illegal oil refining production or warehouses of ready-made counterfeit fuel. And then, taking into account that industrial zones, as a rule, have their own access railway tracks, calmly sell the stolen hydrocarbons. Over the past years, in this region, we have achieved a significant reduction in criminal activity at pipeline system facilities - from 46 taps in 2016 to 11 in 2021,” Savin cites statistics.

A similar situation was in the Irkutsk region, where the basis of the criminal business was the illegal processing of stolen oil. Here the emphasis was placed on the legality of the operation of various low-power processing plants - mini-factories, the so-called samovars. Just a few years ago, there were 30 to 40 taps per year in the region, and up to ten mini-factories operated in small areas of the region. Together with law enforcement agencies, supervisory authorities and prosecutors, Transneft structures achieved that they were closed as enterprises conducting illegal business activities. As a result, the criminals lost the ability to process the stolen oil, and the number of taps dropped sharply.

“A recent example is the situation in the Leningrad region,” continues Savin. “Several years ago it was approaching critical. We have repeatedly appealed to the regional authorities, the leadership of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, held meetings, and argued for the need to take urgent drastic measures to suppress criminal attacks. And finally, through joint work, we came to the conclusion that it is necessary to create a specialized unit in the region within the structure of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, which will deal specifically with crimes in pipeline transport and the security of the linear part. In 2021, such a division was created. This is a small department, but it was enough to collect information, conduct analytical and operational work, and this with the active participation of Transneft Baltika LLC. The result was achieved quickly: the number of tie-ins was reduced from 72 in 2021 to 18 in 2021.”

Positive examples of the work of Transneft’s security structures prove that there are ways out of such situations. For example, in 2018 in Russia, the decrease in the number of criminal tie-ins on the linear part compared to 2021 was more than 26%; in 2021, the downward trend in the number of criminal tie-ins generally continued.

Citizens' health and ecology

When dealing with criminal incidents, the problems of ecology and public health stand apart. According to statistics, every tenth tap leads to a spill. Cleaning land and water from spilled fuel sometimes requires days of work by dozens of people and pieces of equipment.

For example, to eliminate the consequences of a diesel fuel spill in mid-2021 near Klimovsk in the Moscow region, more than 200 people and 90 pieces of equipment had to be involved. On the local Rakovka River, specialists installed booms every 25 meters. Collecting the rainbow film from the water, cleaning the coastal zone, and removing contaminated soil took almost a week.

Large-scale pollution of collective garden No. 28, located between the villages of Bazilevka and Fedorovka in the Kalininsky district of Ufa, with petroleum products occurred on April 18, 2015 and required large-scale work to dispose of water and soil. Transneft employees had to install more than 900 meters of booms and use various sorbents and substances that decompose oil. 100 emergency rescue specialists and 14 pieces of equipment were involved in the emergency work.

There are many similar examples, but the courts never force fuel thieves to pay for work to clean up spilled fuel from land and water. On the contrary, there are examples where they try to blame environmental damage from oil spills after criminal connections on the pipeline monopoly. Thus, in the same Ufa in March 2015, as a result of a criminal tap into the Salavat-Ufa oil product pipeline, about 200 liters spilled onto the soil. Then Rosprirodnadzor of the Republic assessed the total environmental damage at 28 million rubles and demanded it from the company managing the pipeline. There are hundreds of similar cases, Transneft claims. The position of the supervisory authorities is clear: even if the criminals were caught, it is far from a fact that they have money. But the company that operates the pipe definitely has them. There is no need to catch anyone here.

A separate topic is the health of citizens. The activities of fuel thieves have become so large-scale that for drivers it’s as if the 90s have returned with their lawlessness regarding fuel quality. However, it is worth mentioning that we are talking about individual regions, as a rule, sometimes very remote from the center.

At dozens of oil depots across the country, petroleum products are made from stolen diesel, aviation kerosene and from gasoline distilled from oil in primitive direct distillation plants, with the addition of chemicals hazardous to human health and harmful to engines. In fuel at gas stations you can find benzene, tetraethyl lead, naphthalene, iron additives, methyl tert-butyl ether, ethyl alcohol, acetone, and sulfur.

The report of the head of the Federation of Car Owners of Russia (FAR), Sergei Kanaev, provides the following facts: at a number of gas stations inspected by the Federation, the benzene content in gasoline was 6-7 times higher, and 25% of samples for benzene concentration turned out to be fatal.

Benzene is obtained by distilling oil in samovars. Removing benzene requires complex equipment, so samovar makers don’t bother with it. Straight-run gasoline with benzene flows freely to gas stations and then into car tanks. Benzene is a strong carcinogen. Inhalation of vapors containing benzene leads to anemia, leukemia and bone marrow diseases.

When using surrogate gasoline with additives that increase its octane number, catalysts, spark plugs, injectors, and oxygen sensors on cars fail, the operation of the fuel system is disrupted, and engine wear increases.

Almost pure poison can be heating oil, which is purchased en masse by summer residents before the onset of winter. To make it, they use the cheapest fuel oil, diluted with stolen diesel, kerosene and chemical waste. Doctors say that in recent years, in addition to the traditional spring-summer allergy to pollen, various food additives, allergies to emissions from heating oil in private homes in Central Russia have been added.

In one of the elite cottage villages of the Moscow region, the use of such “fuel” led to the fact that the owner of the house ended up in the hospital, the heating equipment ended up in a landfill, and neighbors wiped their window sills from an incomprehensible coating that corroded the rags.

The worst thing is that fuel thieves do not care about the purity of any fuel, including aviation gasoline and kerosene. In the 90s and 00s, several accidents occurred due to the use of low-quality fuel. Accidents of private planes and helicopters in recent years in the Moscow region can also be caused by low-quality fuel. But how can this be detected if post-accident fuel analysis is not carried out for private aviation?

Fuel theft is therefore not just ordinary “theft”. This type of criminal activity reduces the resource of vehicles, destroys the environment, damages the health of citizens and threatens their lives.

Conclusion

In the Russian Federation, a large-scale criminal system of fuel theft has developed with a wide market for “scorched” fuel. The size of the problem can be judged by the fact that while the number of passenger cars has increased by almost a third in recent years, the increase in the official fuel market was only 5%.

One of the ways to combat counterfeiting, and this is the opinion of the entire expert community, may be the currently absent licensing of activities for the circulation of oil and petroleum products.

The effective fight against the catastrophic scale of the criminal business of tapping into oil and petroleum product pipelines is associated with the incomprehensible slowness of the State Duma in introducing the necessary amendments to the legislation and with liberal law enforcement practices towards fuel thieves.

While there is no real punishment for tapping into pipelines, the criminal fuel business is growing stronger, the geography of the activities of criminal groups is expanding, and the turnover of counterfeit fuel is growing every year, threatening the economic and social stability of the state with its scale.”

Punishment for fuel theft

An administrative penalty is a mild sanction for theft of energy resources. If the crime is regarded as criminal, for it, under Art. 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for punishment in the form of imprisonment for up to 2 years.

If an illegal connection is discovered by utility services, and the court confirms this fact, the consequences will not be limited to a fine. Despite the fact that the amounts of collections can be quite large (from 100 thousand rubles), a second attempt can be regarded as theft on an especially large scale. This carries a criminal penalty of 6 or more years in prison. In addition, a fine will be imposed on the culprit. The term of imprisonment and the amount of the fine are set by the court.

What does the deadline depend on?

The sentences that the court imposes for theft from gas and oil pipelines depend on a number of circumstances:

• volume of stolen raw materials;
• damage to the environment;
• harm caused to human health and life;
• destruction or damage to an oil or gas pipeline, or objects that ensure their operation - alarms, control equipment, automatic devices that make the system function.

The greater the damage caused by the actions of the attackers, the more serious the punishment will be.

To find out more about your rights and options in such a situation, please contact our lawyers at the numbers provided. They will provide high-quality legal advice and, if necessary, represent your interests before government agencies and in court.

if the pipeline cost less than 2,000 rubles

The assistance of a professional lawyer significantly increases the likelihood of a positive outcome of the case.

if the pipeline cost less than 2,000 rubles, then such an act can be recognized not as theft, but as petty theft, and then it falls under the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, which does not entail a criminal record.

In this case, the decisive factor is whether related actions were committed that entail criminal liability regardless of the cost of the pipeline. For a list of such actions, see this link.

Administrative liability for pipeline theft

For the theft of a pipeline worth up to 1,000 rubles, the following liability is provided:

• a fine in the amount of up to five times the value of the stolen property, but not less than one thousand rubles;
• or administrative arrest for up to fifteen days;
• or compulsory work for up to fifty hours.

For the theft of a pipeline worth from 1000 to 2000 rubles, the following liability is provided:

• a fine in the amount of up to five times the value of the stolen property, but not less than three thousand rubles;
• or administrative arrest for a period of ten to fifteen days;
• or compulsory work for a period of up to one hundred and twenty hours.

Legislative regulation

Article 7.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, petty theft (version current for 2021)

1. Petty theft of someone else’s property, the value of which does not exceed one thousand rubles, by theft, fraud, misappropriation or embezzlement in the absence of signs of crimes provided for in parts two, three and four of Article 158, Article 158.1, parts two, three and four of Article 159, parts two, three and four of Article 159.1, parts two, three and four of Article 159.2, parts two, three and four of Article 159.3, parts two, three and four of Article 159.5, parts two, three and four of Article 159.6 and parts of the second and third of Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, with the exception of cases provided for in Article 14.15.3 of this Code - (as amended by Federal Law dated 02/05/2018 N 13-FZ)

punishment: entails the imposition of an administrative fine in the amount of up to five times the value of the stolen property, but not less than one thousand rubles, or administrative arrest for up to fifteen days, or compulsory labor for up to fifty hours.

2. Petty theft of someone else’s property worth more than one thousand rubles, but not more than two thousand five hundred rubles through theft, fraud, misappropriation or embezzlement in the absence of signs of crimes provided for in parts two, three and four of Article 158, Article 158.1, parts two, three and fourth article 159, parts two, third and fourth of article 159.1, parts second, third and fourth of article 159.2, parts second, third and fourth of article 159.3, parts second, third and fourth of article 159.5, parts second, third and fourth of article 159.6 and parts the second and third articles 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, with the exception of cases provided for in Article 14.15.3 of this Code - (as amended by Federal Law dated 02/05/2018 N 13-FZ)

punishment: entails the imposition of an administrative fine in the amount of up to five times the value of the stolen property, but not less than three thousand rubles, or administrative arrest for a period of ten to fifteen days, or compulsory labor for a period of up to one hundred and twenty hours.