5 receive jail terms for stealing CPC diesel

Taipei, Nov. 5 (CNA) Five people have been sentenced to jail terms ranging from 10 to 26 months for stealing state-owned diesel, according to a ruling released by the Taichung District Court on Tuesday.

In its ruling made in April, the court said a man surnamed Chen (陳), Chen's sister and her boyfriend, as well as another man identified as Tu (凃) and Tu's friend, also called Chen, were found guilty of the aggravated theft of 2,000 liters of diesel from CPC Corp., Taiwan.

The case came to light in September 2022, when CPC reported to police abnormal fluctuations in a damaged oil pipeline in the Qingshui District, the ruling said.

After examining surveillance footage, police found a nearby metal structure with a corrugated steel roof was used by the five to siphon off oil from multiple pipelines, in a scheme they copied from the South Korean movie "Pipeline."

It was determined that the boyfriend of Chen's sister first bought equipment costing NT$500,000 (US$15,650), which they used to try and access a pipeline belonging to Formosa Petrochemical Corp. in Changhua from January to February 2022.

However, the group's first attempt failed as they were only able to remove the reinforced concrete above the pipeline, according to the ruling.

Later in May and June the same year, Chen's boyfriend provided her brother with NT$390,000 to start work on other CPC pipelines identified by Chen in Qingshui.

It was then they rented the corrugated steel roof structure to make their preparations and started to dig four pipelines with pickaxes and electric hammers in August.

In this way, they managed to siphon off 2,000 liters of diesel from one of the four pipelines to the metal structure, with a value of NT$60,000, the ruling said, noting that the CPC oil pipelines were also seriously damaged and rendered unusable.

In April this year, the five received jail terms ranging from 10 to 26 months.

In addition, CPC brought a civil case against the five individuals demanding NT$1.26 million in compensation for the diesel stolen, damage to the pipelines and repair work.

Other than Tu, who has reached a settlement by paying NT$250,000 to CPC, the court ordered the other four in October to pay the company a total of NT$1.01 million.