He stole $52K in gas from a Pierce County city in two years. Here’s how the scheme worked
A 59-year-old Tacoma man’s scheme to buy gas for himself and others using city credit cards defrauded the city of Gig Harbor out of $52,568 over a period of about two years, according to reports from police and the Washington State Auditor’s Office.
The man wasn’t a city employee, according to the reports.
Pierce County Superior Court records show that prosecutors charged him for the gas card thefts as well as other counts including possession of stolen property, possession of a stolen vehicle, burglary and unlawful possession of a controlled substance. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced March 28 to serve a 50-month sentence that includes 25 months in custody with the Department of Corrections and 25 months in supervised substance use disorder treatment. He has agreed to pay full restitution for the money spent on the stolen gas cards.
The city of Gig Harbor spends about $200,000 each year “using fuel cards to operate its vehicles and equipment,” according to the Auditor’s Office accountability audit report released on March 31. The fuel card program covers “pretty much every vehicle” the city has, including dump trucks, staff vehicles and vehicles for equipment, Gig Harbor Public Works Director Jeff Langhelm told The News Tribune on April 1. City employees use the cards to pay for fuel they use on the job.
The city notified the State Auditor’s Office on Nov. 3, 2023, immediately upon detecting the unauthorized transactions, in compliance with state law, according to city staff and police department personnel.
“It’s a very, very small component of our annual budget,” Gig Harbor Police Chief Kelly Busey said of the lost funds on April 1. “However — big however — it’s of ultimate importance that we spend every dime of the city’s money properly, and we take that very seriously. To that regard, we appreciate the cooperation and the assistance of the State Auditor’s Office in this.”
The auditor’s report says the city’s finance department was first alerted to the fraudulent activity during a monthly review of fuel card statements in October 2023.
“Immediately the cards were shut down,” Gig Harbor Finance Director Dave Rodenbach told The News Tribune. “Immediately the police were contacted. And ... we immediately started to wrap our minds around how big this thing is and tabulate the worksheets.”
Staff downloaded data from the credit card company and started investigating the aberrations they saw, working with the Public Works Department and police to identify where and when the cards were used, Rodenbach continued.
The city discovered that two of the stolen credit cards, which had been located inside city operations vehicles parked in the city’s Fleet Maintenance Yard, were used numerous times to buy fuel at locations throughout the state from June to November 2023, according to the police report. More fraudulent transactions made between Nov. 22, 2021 and Nov. 1, 2023 were identified in a second audit. In total, the city calculated its losses at $51,013.09, the police report said.
The city’s fleet maintenance yard is located off of Skansie Avenue, according to Langhelm, the Public Works director. More than half of the city’s vehicles, including all of its operations vehicles, are parked in the locked and gated facility.
The State Auditor’s Office identified an additional loss of $1,555 and a third stolen fuel card missed in the initial police investigation. The police department’s chief investigator on the case, Lt. Tray Federici, told The News Tribune that police were working against the clock to gather evidence for the investigation while working with the city finance department “to get updated information as fast as humanly possible.” It wasn’t possible to do a complete forensic audit, like the one the State Auditor’s Office completed, at the time of the initial police investigation, he said.
Police reports show that officers pieced together the fraud scheme by visiting gas stations in Tacoma where the credit cards were used and watching CCTV surveillance footage. The videos showed people from several vehicles, including a red H3 Hummer, a light-colored two-tone Lexus sedan and a red Mazda pickup truck, making fraudulent transactions at the fuel pumps.
In one video on Oct. 21, 2023, a red Mazda truck drove up to the center fuel pump at a 7-Eleven. The driver, later identified as the primary suspect in the fuel card thefts, got out and walked over to the driver of a white truck that pulled up behind the Mazda. After the two exchanged words at the pump, the Mazda driver inserted a card at the white truck’s pump and entered a PIN number. The time, 7:07 a.m., matched the city’s financial records for a fraudulent charge of $96.42 on one of the stolen fuel cards. The Mazda driver then moved his truck to the other side of the pump and pumped fuel into his own vehicle. Police saw similar incidents in surveillance video from days including Oct. 23, 24 and 25, including cases where the suspect filled up gas cans, according to police reports.
The investigators were able to trace a woman who appeared in the footage to her home in Tacoma, where they observed the same three vehicles parked at the residence. When they spoke with her, they learned that another man, who was living in a trailer between her home and a residence she was subletting next door, had offered to buy her and others discounted fuel on a continued basis. She agreed to pay him cash in exchange for fuel at half price, the report said.
After obtaining a search warrant for the trailer, detectives found one of the city’s fuel cards on the floor inside, as well as a red and black varsity-style jacket that they matched to a suspect who appeared in gas station surveillance footage.
Officers took him into custody on April 4, 2024, when the suspect was found burglarizing a different facility near the city’s fleet yard, according to Federici.
The primary suspect identified a possible co-defendant when talking with law enforcement, but police were unable to generate probable cause to arrest anyone else in the case, Federici said. According to the police report, the primary suspect told Gig Harbor Police that he bought one of the city fuel cards from a friend for $300. That friend “confided in him that he had broken into the City of Gig Harbor Fleet Maintenance Yard and stolen two fleet fuel cards from two unlocked vehicles,” then showed the suspect how to use them, the police report said.
Following the incident, the city immediately changed its internal procedures for the fuel card program and created a policy for them, according to Langhelm. The changes included taking the fuel cards out of the vehicles where they were previously stored and keeping them in a locked facility indoors, and changing the cards’ PIN numbers, which previously matched the vehicle number identified on the card.
The cards are only authorized for fuel purchases. Any other type of transaction would be denied, such as for candy bars or food, Federici confirmed.
This story was originally published April 3, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
