“We have deployed an Anti-Mafia Plan to combat distortion. Consequently, on Monday, we have dismantled one of the gasoline smuggling mafias,” this high official announced on Twitter.

He said that, in coordination with state security agencies, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) and Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), three Venezuelan citizens were arrested.

He added they found 100,000 liters of gasoline in makeshift tanks of this mafia, equipment used for the transfer, hoses and motor pumps in the illegal warehouse used to store the stolen fuel.

On Saturday, during his speech before the National Assembly (AN, in Spanish), President Nicolas Maduro urged relevant authorities to put an end to the proliferation of mafias in the country’s gasoline stations.

For his part, Attorney General of the Republic, Tarek William Saab, reported on Twitter that the MP activated the telephone line 0800-FISCA-00 to receive complaints about fuel trafficking.

Gasoline shortage has been one of the problems in this South American nation in the past two years, essentially as a consequence of the deficit of raw materials for its production, due to the coercive and unilateral measures imposed by the United States.

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