“The owner thought he was buying stolen gas, so he’s a *little* reluctant to come forward...”
Brilliant!
Proving once again, that you can’t cheat an honest man.
There was a similar scheme in the Austin area a little over a year ago.
A guy would find a closed gas station or one with just a teenager manning the register and proceed to park his truck next to the gas tanks. He would then open the tanks and start pumping. However, while he was doing that he started up a pressure washer and started washing the station’s parking lot.
If I recall correctly, he was caught when an owner of a closed station drove by and saw him washing his lot. He had probably stolen from more than a dozen stations before he was caught.