Fuel thief 'stole for his kids'

2008-06-25 09:30

Virginia Keppler

Pretoria - The infamous serial petrol thief has been caught!

The success was thanks to Beeld's readers' detective work.

Carlos Pereira-Luis of Danville in Pretoria West was arrested at his workplace in Pretoria by detectives from police headquarters.

Since July last year he had allegedly stolen thousands of rands worth of petrol from various petrol stations in Pretoria and surrounding areas, by filling up his car and several containers with petrol before speeding off.

'This looks like you?'

When Pereira-Luis was arrested, a colleague said that after he had seen the photo of the petrol thief in the newspaper on Tuesday morning, he had joked with Pereira-Luis and said, "This man looks just like you. Don't you want to go and fill up my car too?"

On three occasions Beeld placed CCTV images of the petrol thief at various petrol stations.

The arrest came after a reader had recognised Pereira-Luis in a photograph. He then phoned the newspaper with Pereira-Luis's name.

'I knew I'd be caught'

Beeld and another reader followed up on the information on Tuesday morning and discovered his work address and telephone number.

The information was given to Inspector Susan du Preez of the Garsfontein police station, who passed it on to the head of the Pretoria police's detective services.

In the meantime, the Beeld team went to Pereira-Luis's workplace in Voortrekker Road, where he worked part-time, to try to identify him.

At one point Pereira-Luis even asked the Beeld team if he could help them. He then got in a vehicle and drove off.

Director Derick van Wyk, Superintendent Jan Stassen, Nico Koegelenberg and Superintendent Fires Jansen van Vuuren arrived shortly thereafter and the Beeld team informed them of the latest developments.

The detectives then went to speak to Pereira-Luis's employer. He said Pereira-Luis had gone to by spare parts and would be back soon.

After about two hours, he showed up at 15:33.

The detectives arrested him.

Initially Pereira-Luis denied the allegations against him but later on the way to his house he admitted that he had stolen fuel from various places, including Waterkloof Ridge, Groenkloof, Skurweberg (near Pelindaba, west of Pretoria) and even in Midrand.

Pereira-Luis said to Beeld, "I did it to go for job interviews and to take my children to school. I knew it was just a matter of time before I would be caught."

"This morning when I saw Beeld, I threw away the red beanie and the t-shirt that I had been wearing (on the photos in the newspaper)," he said.

The police seized the white Opel Corsa with which Pereira-Luis had committed the robberies.

Pereira-Luis was being held at the Brooklyn police station.

"This success belongs to Beeld. "We just came to make the arrest."

"The police's share is only 10%, yours is 90%. You are a team of good detectives," Van Wyk said.

He called on petrol stations that had also been conned by Pereira-Luis to report this to their nearest police station.

- Beeld