Four very junkyard-looking locations in Oakland, Richmond, and San Leandro were on the business end of FBI raids Wednesday, in an investigation of what the FBI and Bay Area police think is a diesel fuel theft ring.
Both NBC Bay Area and KTVU were covering the story that FBI agents raided four East Bay locations Wednesday morning, in what is apparently an investigation into a stolen diesel fuel ring. Both reports are short on details, but the Bay Area News Groups seems way ahead on this one, noting that the raids come “amid reports that a group of thieves had set up a station to sell stolen gasoline at an East Oakland chop shop.”
Well, folks, here is a photo of that alleged chop shop, and it is one of four East Bay locations raided today by the FBI and various NorCal police departments. KTVU describes the location as “a lot at 4220 Alameda Ave., near the Home Depot on High Street,” though we should clarify the place has nothing to do with Home Depot, it is just nearby. That outlet adds that the place is routinely littered with “shipping containers and battered cars in what appeared to be a junkyard.”
And the Bay Area News Group notes that the place was already raided in May when Oakland police identified it as the site of “a suspected large-scale cargo theft ring.” That outlet adds that the Wednesday raid seized “two trailers, a forklift, a motorcycle, and five cars all of which were suspected to be stolen,” and that the May raid turned up more than a dozen cars which were proven to have been stolen…