A Florida man recently pled guilty to felony charges of illegally transporting hazardous fuel without the required hazmat placards and using counterfeit credit cards, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General. On Feb. 21, Antonio Borges of Hialeah was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Miami to three years probation and ordered to pay $1,059 in restitution for illegal transactions.
Borges admitted to purchasing gasoline using counterfeit ExxonMobil credit cards at several gas stations in the Miami area in July 2003. At one location, according to OIG, Borges pumped more than 121 gallons of fuel, gathered through two consecutive purchases, into an illegally modified pickup truck containing a large gas tank. The truck, which has a manufactured fuel tank capacity of only 19 gallons, was not placarded as required by DOT regulations.
The case was investigated jointly by the U.S. Postal Service, OIG, the U.S. Secret Service, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Miami-Dade Police Department, Hialeah Police Department and the Florida division of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
