Acting on information received from a member of the public, this morning officers recovered over 50 containers of fuel from a Mercedes car parked in Arengo’s Palace car park.

Each container held about 22 litres of fuel so, in total, there were around 1200 litres of fuel inside the vehicle.  In the past, fuel containers such as these have been taken out to sea on small RHIBs operating from Gibraltar’s beaches for the purpose of refuelling the larger RHIBs used by drug traffickers.

This afternoon, two local males (30 and 19) and a local female (20) were arrested on suspicion of Petrol Kept, Used or Conveyed in a Motor Car, Contrary to the Petroleum Act.

An RGP spokesman said,

“We are most grateful to the member of the public who alerted us to the fuel containers stored in a busy car park.

 “As well as hindering organised crime in the drug trafficking trade, we’ve also removed the risk of fire or explosion in a residential area.

 “Again, we ask anyone who observes a large quantity of these plastic containers to contact the RGP on 200 72500 or the Gibraltar Fire and Rescue Service on 200 79507. In an emergency, call 199.”