Thieves are now using simple tools to drill holes directly into vehicle fuel tanks to steal oil, leaving owners with costly repair bills. Stains of diesel fuel on the ground serve as evidence of such thefts, including one targeting a mobile food delivery truck operated by the St. Vincent de Paul Society, a Catholic charity in St. Louis.

Taseen Malara was driving with his girlfriend to breakfast outside Scottsdale, Arizona, last month when he noticed the fuel level in his Toyota pickup was extremely low and dropping rapidly. After pulling into a gas station to refuel with premium gasoline, he discovered a leak. "I looked under the vehicle and saw gasoline gushing out from the chassis," said the 31-year-old Malara. "It was leaking so badly—it was terrifying."

Malara had fallen victim to a new and increasingly common form of fuel theft: drilling. Thieves need only a few unsupervised minutes, a handheld power drill, and a container—sometimes even just milk jugs. A neatly drilled hole was found in Malara’s fuel tank, resulting in nearly $3,000 in repairs and a week in the shop.

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran push oil prices to a four-year high, and traditional, less destructive theft methods become harder to execute, this type of "drill-and-drain" theft is growing more frequent. In Los Angeles, where regular gasoline prices are among the highest in the nation at around $6 per gallon, repair consultant Lupe Armas says his shop now fixes a drilled fuel tank nearly every week, compared to just a few times per year in the past. "It’s definitely become an issue," Armas noted.

The American Mutual Insurance Alliance reports that insurers are also seeing an uptick in claims for vehicle damage, although it may take time to assess the full scale of the problem since reports remain largely anecdotal just weeks after the price surge began. "We hope this is only a short-term phenomenon," said Brett Odom, the association’s vice president of policy.

Experts indicate that such repairs are generally covered under comprehensive auto insurance policies. Bob Passmore, vice president of personal insurance at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, compared the trend to earlier waves of catalytic converter thefts, where thieves used power tools to remove the parts and sell the precious metals inside—also leading to expensive repairs.

The shift toward drilling stems from the declining feasibility of traditional siphoning methods. During the 1970s gas shortages in the U.S., many people used plastic tubes or garden hoses to siphon fuel from parked vehicles. The image of someone accidentally inhaling gasoline while trying to suck fuel through a hose became a pop culture trope. While annoying, siphoning caused no permanent damage. Vehicle owners later began installing locking gas caps and paying closer attention to parked cars.

Malara said he would have preferred the old-fashioned approach. "I wish they had just siphoned the fuel." But siphoning has become far more difficult today. Most newer vehicles feature narrow, curved filler necks that are hard to access with a hose; some include internal flaps or baffles to prevent siphoning; and stricter environmental regulations have made fuel systems more tightly sealed.

Fuel theft trends often follow oil price movements. While drive-off incidents at gas stations have increased, prepayment systems have made such theft harder to carry out. Other methods include siphoning fuel from underground storage tanks at gas stations or using electronic devices to manipulate pumps for extremely cheap fuel.

Reports of thieves drilling into fuel tanks have appeared sporadically for at least a decade. But high prices tend to trigger spikes in such crimes, as seen in mid-2022 when the national average gasoline price hit a record $5 per gallon following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now, with prices climbing once more, the consequences have returned.

One morning this month, staff at the St. Vincent de Paul Society in St. Louis discovered a dark oil stain on the ground next to their mobile food delivery van. Someone had drilled into the tank and stolen expensive diesel fuel. Executive Director Michael Meehan said the entire tank was emptied, and the damage temporarily sidelined the vehicle, forcing the charity to arrange a substitute for their food distribution efforts.

Meehan expressed a degree of sympathy for the perpetrators. "It shows that a lot of people are struggling right now." Still, he wished they had chosen a different method. "If they had just siphoned the fuel, we could have saved on repairs," he remarked.