Two more arrested for crude oil theft in Barmer

Jaipur/Jaisalmer: The

Special Operations Group

(SOG) of Rajasthan police on Sunday arrested two more persons in

Barmer

crude

oil theft

case. The accused include a factory owner who sold crude oil as tyre oil, the sleuths said. With this, the number of arrests made in the case so far reached 32.

In the month of July, SOG was given the task of busting the nexus between contractors, transporters and company employees in the multi-crore crude oil theft.

“The accused identified as

Bhoor Singh Rajpurohit

had started a factory which processed tyre oil. However, most of the tankers carrying crude oil used to be unloaded in his factory. Rajpurohit sold the stolen crude oil to various parts of the country in the name of tyre oil,” said Dinesh M N, inspector general of police, SOG on Sunday.

He said that the factory had underground oil pipelines and it appears that after 2013-14 when the crude oil theft came to the notice of local police, the accused started a factory.

“He is a big catch in the whole nexus as he got a licence for processing tyre oil which he misused to sell crude oil,” The IG said. According to SOG sources, for past 7 years, oil was being stolen from oilfields in an organized manner. Officials added there are two types of oil wells in Barmer. The first kind include 200 oil wells which are sealed and crude oil is transported to the refinery in

Gujarat

through pipelines. These oil wells contribute 98% of total production. On the other hand, there are 20 oil wells which are not sealed and oil is extracted manually and transported to

Mangla Processing Terminal

located on Barmer-Jodhpur National Highway mainly through tanker trucks. The 20 oil wells contribute 2% of the total production.

Another accused

Ganesha Ram

was arrested on Thursday.