An ongoing racketeering and corruption investigation by the Florida state attorney’s office has produced indictments of 19 suspects and seven companies for alleged theft of jet fuel and contract manipulations at Miami International Airport (MIA) dating back to 1999. Estimates of how much fuel was stolen or other money misappropriated add up to as much as $5.3 million. Of particular interest to business aviation, much of the fuel stolen from the massive MIA fuel farm was allegedly resold and could have gone to FBOs. There have been no reports of tainted fuel turning up at any Florida FBOs, and the pending investigation is expected to track where the illicit fuel ended up.
As reported by the Associated Press and corroborated by an industry source, the indictments indicate that roughly 33,000 gallons of jet-A per month was stolen. According to the reports, Richard Caride, a former employee of Aircraft Services International Group (ASIG)–a sister company of Signature Flight Support–was responsible for removing potentially contaminated jet fuel from the fuel farm as part of his job. According to the indictment, Caride and others arranged to have some 33,000 gallons of untainted, non-suspect fuel per month offloaded to trucks for resale. The reports indicate that, in some cases, “the fuel was mixed with diesel fuel and used in yachts, trucks and private jets.”
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