Khaberni - In one of the broadest regulatory strikes, the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation announced the dismantling of organized networks for fuel smuggling and manipulation through secret stores, which resulted in the seizure of more than one million liters across 7 provinces during the current April.
The report issued by the Central Committee for Petroleum Products Supervision revealed ingenious smuggling tricks where inspection teams in the Gharbia governorate found "hidden underground tanks" beneath dense concrete layers, specifically designed to store diesel away from regulatory supervision for trading in the black market, with 40,000 liters seized within them.
Two stations were caught in Cairo encompassing "secret cesspits" used to store industrial mazut through pumps, hidden pipelines, and electrical connections that posed a great danger to the surrounding area.
Serious technical violations
The authority also disclosed the monitoring of a gang operating from inside one of the fuel depots in the southern provinces, loading additional quantities of fuel in violation of official invoices.
The campaign identified suspicious financial transactions linked to this activity, and coordination with the public prosecutor's office is ongoing to legally prosecute the involved parties.
The campaigns, which included visits to 690 gas stations, identified serious technical violations described as "dangerous," consisting of mixing fuel with water and impurities, which threatens to damage car engines.
The campaigns revealed the detection of 4 stations in the heart of Cairo receiving official allocations while being completely closed, confirming the leakage of these shares to the black market, in addition to the detection of "phantom" brick factories receiving subsidized fuel without conducting any production activity.
