Oil mafia operates with impunity in Mumbai

The oil mafia continues to operate out of Sewri and Chembur where diesel is adulterated with naptha and smuggled out of the city to various places in the state. Senior police officials who were earlier attached to Mumbai's Crime Branch that polices adulteration of food and fuel, claim that political heavyweights control the racket in the state.

Some of the big- time oil tanker fleet owners operating out from Chembur and Navi Mumbai, enjoy political patronage in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Nashik- Jalgaon belt and Konkan region bordering Goa and Karnataka and hence initiating criminal action against them is absolutely difficult.

" The raids on oil adulteration gangs in the backdrop of Additional Collector of Manmad ashwant Sonawane being burnt alive by the oil adulteration mafia is a nothing but an eyewash. Action is being initiated against very small players while the big players remain untouched because of immunity provided by the powerful political leaders controlling regions and cities in the state.

Apart from Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai, the adulterated fuel is transported to the Ratnagiri- Sindhudurg region and then transported to Goa and Karnataka.

Nashik and Jalgaon too are major hubs of fuel adulteration where naptha illegally offloaded from oil tankers in mid- sea, off the Mumbai coastline, is smuggled out from porous landing points like Sewri. The smuggled naptha is then transported to various parts of the state, including Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane," claimed a senior police official who was formerly attached to the city crime branch.

He further added that tankers containing diesel adulterated with naptha have been seized a number of times in the recent past by the city crime branch. However, due to pressure from certain quarters in the police hierarchy, cases against the fleet tanker owners involved in the multi- crore racket spread out to states in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa, were diluted.

In a number of cases, licensed naptha importers were also involved in illegally diverting naptha to the local market where it finds its way into the dens of the oil adulteration mafia syndicates. However, since these naptha importers were politically connected at high- level, even Customs authorities fail to initiate punitive action against these unscrupulous importers.