‘Fuel theft has cost my petrol station £2,000 since Iran war started – my family can’t carry on like this’

“If someone steals £100 worth of fuel from us, that’s £100 out of my profit for the day,” Goran Raven said. “This is definitely a direct loss for us.”

Speaking at the Shell garage in Romford, east London, Mr Raven said he had lost nearly £2,000 to fuel theft since the war between Iran and the US began on February 28.

Rising pump prices in the wake of the Iran war have meant the fourth-generation family business has taken a serious hit as more people hit the road without paying.

Its website said the first two weeks of the conflict saw the highest rates of oil theft. “It was as if the criminal element of society was preparing itself for the worst.

“I thought to myself for a moment that if prices keep going up, if thefts keep going up, and if this goes on for a longer period of time, I need to start looking at layoffs.

“This has a really big impact because it comes at a time when prices are rising and fuel sales are falling and slowing down.”

The war-related closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March disrupted global shipping and halted the flow of one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

In the UK pre-trials, the average price of a liter of diesel was 191.2 pence, an increase of 49 pence since the start of the war, while the price of a liter of petrol was 158.1 pence, an increase of 25 pence.

Mr Raven believes people who stole his petrol thought they were stealing from fuel supplier Shell. But since he runs a franchise, he’s out of pocket.

“This is how I pay for my staff, this is how I pay for my family’s stuff,” he said. “I can’t get insurance against this, there’s no one else in the business.”

Family-run forecourts have been hit hard by petrol thefts, which have increased by 27 per cent at petrol stations across the UK, according to some reports; others suggest the figure could be as high as 62 percent. Campaigners have warned the increase could cost the forecourt sector more than £100 million a year.

“You could lose £200 or £300 worth of fuel a day,” Mr Raven said. “The cars all come in at the same time and suddenly, within two or three minutes, they all leave the forecourt and you’re sitting there going, wow, the best part of £300 worth of fuel is outstanding and that’s a bit like saying I’ve ruined my entire trade for the morning.

“We get a lot of people who come in and say they forgot their wallet… About 80 percent of people, when you say, ‘I need to take your picture,’ they find their wallet, they find a card, they find some money in their back pocket.”

Guy White, owner of Laurels service station in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, said he had seen a “massive increase in fuel theft”.

“It’s a very stressful situation. 13 hours a day, seven days a week, you worry that someone is going to steal the things you have,” he said.

They have run their family business since 1963 and previously encountered fuel theft on a weekly basis. Mr White said this was now a daily occurrence at his premises.

“It’s currently costing us around £400 a week,” he added, which is “huge” for his family.

Mr White uses automatic number plate recognition from forecourt security company VARS, which signals staff when blacklisted vehicles, previously used to steal fuel, arrive at the station.

However, one of the biggest problems they face is that drivers use fake or stolen license plates to avoid being caught.

Gordon Balmer, chief executive of the Petroleum Retailers Association (PRA), said many people who steal fuel see it as a “victimless crime”.

“They look at the mast sign and think it’s a BP site or a Shell site and they can afford it, they’ve got lots of money. But independent [retailers] “There is a fuel supply agreement with a branded fuel supplier and it is the family company that operates that yard that has to pay,” he said.

According to Forecourt Eye, which specializes in crime prevention for the oil industry, in some cases people will drive their cars without paying, while in other cases they will claim they “don’t have the payment method”. This tactic increased by 22 percent.

“A lot of people who do this are experiencing financial hardship because of high pump prices,” Mr Balmer said.