Trucking news & briefs for March 17, 2026:
- As diesel theft gets more lucrative, Florida enforcement uncovers cog in "sophisticated fuel theft operation spanning multiple counties."
- FMCSA analyzing mid-duty truck crashes.
Florida ag inspectors arrest one for larceny after fuel-theft device discovery
Eagle-eyed officers at the Florida Agriculture Inspection Station in Pensacola over the weekend blew the lid off a fuel theft operation that used a magnetic device to disable pumps just as the national average price for a gallon of diesel crests $5.
The officers "identified a blue semi-truck pulling a refrigerated trailer that matched the description in a" be-on-the-lookout bulletin warning of a "sophisticated fuel theft operation spanning multiple counties," according to a release from Florida's Agricultural Law Enforcement unit.
That same outfit has been stepping up English language and immigration enforcement with inspections, but this time discovered something quite different.
Officers selected the truck for a regulatory inspection and identified the driver as Alain De Jesus Aguila-Martinez, who held a Florida Commercial Driver’s License.
During the inspection, a K-9 unit conducted a "free-air sniff around Aguila-Martinez’s 2002 Freightliner semi-truck and alerted officers to the presence of narcotics."
But inspectors didn't stop there.
"A subsequent search of the vehicle uncovered a large magnet concealed under the driver’s steering wheel," according to the release. "The magnet was identified as a device commonly used to manipulate fuel pump solenoids, enabling the unauthorized theft of diesel fuel."
Not only that, but authorities said Aguila-Martinez had active arrest warrants for multiple felony charges, including Organized Fraud, Retail Fuel Theft Tampering, and Petit Theft.
Aguila-Martinez was promptly taken into custody by Agricultural Inspection Officers and sent to the Escambia County Jail.
"He now faces felony charges of Larceny–Tampering with/Removing a Retail Fuel Dispenser, which are part of an ongoing investigation into an organized fuel theft ring operating across Santa Rosa, Escambia, and Walton Counties."
FMCSA launches study of mid-duty truck crashes
- Crash causation and prevention
- Commercial motor vehicles, commercial drivers, and motor carriers, including passenger carriers
- Highways and noncommercial motor vehicles and drivers
- Federal and State highway and motor carrier safety programs
- Research methods and statistical analysis.
- Other relevant topics, as determined by the Secretary of Transportation
[Related: Indiana wants to toll I-70, truckers' worst road in the nation]
