Fuel Theft

Fuel theft takes several distinct forms, and they need different controls. Siphoning removes diesel from the tank, usually while parked overnight. Short-filling means the pump delivers less than the invoice states, with the difference shared. Card fraud means fuel is purchased and sold on without ever entering the vehicle. And collusive theft involves the driver, the outlet or both.

Detection rests on cross-checking sources that are hard to falsify simultaneously. A tank-level sensor shows a sudden drop; the GPS trace shows where the vehicle was and whether the ignition was off; the card transaction shows what was supposedly bought. Any single source can be explained away, but a drop of forty litres in nine minutes at a location with no fuel outlet is not ambiguous.

The practical caveat is calibration. Raw sensor readings swing with vehicle tilt, temperature and fuel slosh, so a system that alerts on every reading dip will produce alerts nobody believes. Tilt-compensated, filtered readings with a minimum drop threshold are what make the alerts actionable.