Andrews – A ring of thieves have stolen gas out of area U-Haul trucks for at least two years.
The larcenies often leave trucks damaged and unavailable for use. The criminals sometimes leave behind evidence of their heist.
The crime ring’s terror crosses county lines, yet law enforcement cannot catch them. The victims have tried to combat the issue, but not all have been successful.
The brazen thefts threaten the livelihood of local resident DeAnna Debty, who has been an independent U-Haul dealer for three years. Debty said the issue first came to light after a customer swapped out two of her trucks due to the gas line being cut. After the second incident, she knew sabotage was happening on her lot.
“I checked all the trucks on my lot and found the gas line on four of the 26-foot trucks had been cut,” she said. “This started in December, and I think there are three people involved.
“It’s getting to the point where U-Haul is going to get tired of coming to fix my trucks. It’s killing my business, and I’ll eventually have to shut down if it continues.”
Even though Debty installed security cameras after discovering the damaged gas lines, thieves have stolen fuel out of her trucks seven times in the last two months. She believes the thefts mostly happen from midnight-
4 a.m.
However, James “Jaybird” Ellis recently caught a crew in the act around 9 p.m.
“I was driving into town, and my windows happened to be down,” he said. “I smelled the fumes and thought it must be a gas leak or something. As I turned around, I saw a truck bat out of the U-Haul place, headed toward the four-lane.”
Ellis said he thought it was unusual for a vehicle to speed away from the U-Haul dealership at that time of night, so he stopped to check out the situation.
“They left a couple gas cans behind and a siphon hose,” he said. “It looked like they spilled a bunch of it because there was a ton of gas on the ground.”
The Cherokee Scout also spoke with U-Haul dealers in Bryson City, Hayesville, Murphy and Robbinsville. While a few of the dealers said they had not been a victim of gas thefts, the majority of people interviewed said it has happened to them at least once in the last couple years.
A U-Haul dealer in Robbinsville said this happened “more times than you can count on both hands” over the course of about a year. She said police told her to monitor the situation more closely, but some of her trucks are parked outside of her security cameras’ view, making it difficult to catch the culprits. She has since purchased additional cameras in hopes of curbing gas thefts.
A dealer in Murphy said a crew stole gas out of his vehicles “probably five or six times” before he started parking trucks behind a security gate about six months ago.
And a U-Haul dealer in Bryson City said she installed fake cameras, which deterred gas thieves for about six months. When the crew figured out the cameras were fake and started cutting gas lines again, the dealership installed real cameras.
“It’s not like they just siphon out the gas; they straight-up cut the drum line and ruin the valve so contractors have to come out and change the damaged parts,” she said. “The last time happened about three months ago, and we just got our last truck fixed from that incident.”
U-Haul’s corporate headquarters is aware of the issue and has developed newer models of trucks with wider bodies, making it more difficult to access the gas line. However, that still has not solved the issue.
“They can still steal gas from the newer models, but in a different way that causes more damage,” one local dealer said. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”