A large scale racket involving the adulteration of fuel (petrol) dispatched to outstation filling stations by mixing kerosene into the bowser itself was uncovered by STF officers in Dambulla when they caught a bowser crew engaged in the racket by parking their bowser in a granite mill in Makulugaswewa Galewela around noon on November 13.
When the STF team pounced on the spot, the driver of the bowser and his assistant had already broken the bowser seal and pumped petrol out of the bowser using a pipe and were in the process of attempting to introduce an equal amount of kerosene brought from a kerosene lorry into the bowser.
The driver of the batta lorry which brought the kerosene had escaped after sensing the STF raid. Dambulla police investigating the incident said the bowser owned by Trincomalee District UNP Parliamentarian M. A. M. Maharoof was transporting Indian Oil Company petrol to a filling station in China Bay Trincomalee.
Parliamentarian M. A. M. Maharoof when contacted on the phone said he was clueless about this racket as he had no connection what-so-ever to it. When there was a delay in the arrival of the bowser carrying petrol, he tried to speak to the bowser crew on the mobile phone but they were out of reach for a long period. Thereafter, he had advised the manager of the filling station to lodge a complaint with the Trincomalee Police about the delay. If the bowser crew had been involved in an illicit racket, he would hand them over to the Police for necessary action against them. The raid was conducted by an STF team led by Inspector L. Ranatunge following a tip-off by STF intelligence officers.