http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/nation/9216007.htm
Posted on Thu, Jul. 22, 2004
19 face charges in jet fuel thefts
The Miami-Dade state attorney launched arrests on charges of conspiracy to bilk millions from Miami's airport by padding contracts and stealing jet fuel. An airport official and a well-connected lobbyist will be charged.
BY JOE MOZINGO
Miami Herald
State authorities late Wednesday began arresting 11 people in an alleged conspiracy to siphon millions of gallons of jet fuel from Miami International Airport, then pump it into commercial trucks, private jets and luxury yachts around South Florida.
Among those being sought by the Miami-Dade state attorney's office are a businessman with close ties to county commissioners and a high-level Aviation Department official.
The loss to the county-run airport -- through fraud, kickbacks, massive overcharges and a sea of stolen fuel -- is at least $5.5 million, said State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle. She said airline passengers will ultimately pay the price through higher fuel charges, which could boost Miami airfares.
''These criminals used MIA as if it were a casino and they had all the winning hands,'' she said.
Most of the defendants will be charged with racketeering and racketeering conspiracy. The warrants were signed by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Scola, said state attorney's spokesman Ed Griffith.
At the center of the case is Richard Caride, who managed the fuel farm. He is a former Hialeah police officer who staged a home-invasion robbery 18 years ago that left a nightclub owner and his girlfriend dead. Caride served three years for second-degree murder.
Four local companies, including the Fort Lauderdale-based cleanup firm Cliff Berry Inc., are also accused of taking part in a series of brazen schemes centered at MIA's massive fuel depot, tucked away in the southeast corner of the airport off Perimeter Road.
According to officials, two small oil-transport firms allegedly stole up to 3,000 gallons -- per day -- mixing it with diesel and then hawking it from seawalls in Key Biscayne to passing yachters.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the case was its implications for airport and aviation security, officials said.
''These fuel thieves had unrestricted access to most of the airport,'' Fernández Rundle said. ``It was as if the front door was locked tight, but the back door was deliberately left wide open.''
Guards allowed tanker-truck drivers and others to pass freely through what is supposed to be one of the most secure parts of the airport, where millions of gallons of ultra-pure jet fuel are stored before being piped into the bellies of airliners.
One investigator quipped that the fuel-farm security ''would have waved Osama bin Laden in'' if he were driving a company fuel truck.
The Miami-Dade inspector general's office and the state attorney's office began the investigation in April 2003 after Aviation Director Angela Gittens tipped them off.
Aside from several contractors and subcontractors, today's dragnet is expected to nab a well-connected county lobbyist, Antonio Junior, and an airport project manager, Patricia Nichols. The case involves a total of 19 defendants, some of whom have agreed to surrender later.
Junior runs the security company at the fuel farm, although it is not in that role he is accused of breaking the law.
The longtime confidant of County Commission Chairwoman Barbara Carey-Shuler -- he gave her a $20,000 campaign loan in 1996 -- is accused of helping a construction firm get work at the fuel farm that was ''either overpriced, unnecessary or both.'' In return, he got a $70,000 kickback, prosecutors said.
To convince the firm of his ability to get contracts, he boasted of his relationship with Carey-Shuler, according to a law enforcement source. The commissioner is not implicated in the case, prosecutors stressed.
Junior has pieces of a number of county contracts, including transporting disabled people, parking cars, providing baggage carts and wrapping luggage in the terminals.
The construction firm ultimately cut ties with Junior when he started demanding 50 percent of profits, according to investigators.
His security contract is under investigation.
CONSPIRACY ALLEGED
The contractor managing the entire fueling facility was Caride's employer, Aircraft Services International Group, or ASIG, which has not been charged in the case.
From his position, Caride and others allegedly conspired to rip off the county in several ways, dating to at least April 1999.
One involved a $297 piece of fueling equipment called a pilot valve. Caride decided to replace all 450 valves around the airport, despite the job being wholly unnecessary, investigators said. ASIG then invoiced the airport $874 for each valve, plus $1,300 apiece for the hour of labor to install each one.
Caride is also accused of getting the airport to pay $3,428 apiece for more than a dozen gate valves that actually cost $912.
But the fuel theft is where the big money was made, investigators said.
The airport gets the JET-A fuel from a pipeline running straight from Port Everglades in Broward County. Every month, the fuel farm pumps 50 million gallons into the airplanes on the jetways.
In 1999, Caride and a company named RCR Oil launched a ''large-scale, ongoing scheme to steal JET-A fuel from the fueling system at MIA,'' officials said. Good fuel was diverted into waste-fuel tanks and hauled away by tanker trucks for resale to unsuspecting buyers.
Soon another company, Tropical Oil, got in on the scheme, and altogether 2.7 million gallons of fuel were stolen from the airport, according to investigators.
SOUGHT BUYERS
The thieves trucked the fuel around the county looking for buyers. At one point, they allegedly filled up private jets at Opa-locka Airport -- a potentially dangerous prospect because the fuel could have been contaminated in the waste-fuel tanks or trucks.
Worried that a plane would crash and investigators might trace the fuel back to them, they decided to stick to fueling trucks and yachts, the state attorney said.
''Before we got this tip and launched this investigation, this free-wheeling criminal enterprise got $4 million in stolen fuel,'' Fernández Rundle said. ``And no one knew a thing.''
Fernández Rundle, who has been criticized in the past as being soft on corruption, said she assigned her top prosecutors, including Richard Scruggs, and investigators to ferret out the case.
They used simple meteorology to catch Cliff Berry allegedly fudging its bills. The cleanup firm, which holds some big state contracts, was paid 13 cents a gallon to remove contaminated water -- basically rainwater that mixes with spilled fuel and oil on the ground -- from the fuel farm.
When state investigators looked at airport records, they noticed some odd discrepancies between the amount of water they hauled away and the actual rainfall figures.
When it rained 12.76 inches one month, Cliff Berry removed 394,000 gallons. Four months later, when it rained only .71 inches, they removed almost the same amount -- 382,000 gallons.
A Cliff Berry manager, Jeff Smith, allegedly paid Caride a $12,500 kickback to overlook the fraud.
Nichols, the airport project manager, was also key to the racketeering enterprise, officials said. She was in charge of approving all the expenses racked up at the fuel farm.
Caride wanted her to keep paying the bogus invoices, so he told a subcontractor to buy her a 32-inch TV ''to keep her happy,'' prosecutors say. Nichols allegedly accepted the gift, followed by a $569 digital camera and a 55-inch TV from other subcontractors. Nichols will be charged with three counts of unlawful compensation.
<<<<nothing names the victims or the restaurant. I'll keep looking...
