STANWOOD — A waitress pulled the plug on a Stanwood man’s illegal gasoline business after confessing that she bought from him on the sly.
The man, 27, worked for All-Ways Air Control in Stanwood for two years and is accused of racking up $65,000 in unauthorized charges on the company’s gas credit card, according to court documents filed by Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Walt Sowa.
Sowa charged the man Friday with first-degree theft, a felony.
Investigators believe the man was given a credit card to buy gasoline for a company vehicle. The man allegedly kept the card for nearly a year and used it to purchase gasoline for more than a dozen people, who in turn would give him cash, Sowa wrote.
The card was used 925 times to purchase 16,806 gallons of gasoline at stations in Everett, Lynnwood, Stanwood, Mount Vernon, Burlington and Sedro- Woolley, Sowa wrote.
The scheme came to an end after an Arlington waitress confessed to an employee at All-Ways Air Control that she’d been buying gasoline from the defendant, Sowa wrote.
He would meet her at a gas station and she would pay him $20 to $50 for up to $80 worth of fuel paid for on the company credit card, Sowa wrote. She’d been doing it since 2007.
The woman told investigators she later heard from someone that the man was using a company credit card to make the purchases. She eventually told an employee at the Stanwood heating and air-conditioning company, according to court documents.
Stanwood police arrested the man and he allegedly told investigators he sold gas to more people than he could remember, Sowa wrote.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.
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