Vancouver police are recommending charges in what they're calling a "gasoline scheme" after a man was arrested with a large amount of gasoline and phoney credit cards at a gas station.
Police went to a Petro Canada station at 41st Avenue and Oak Street at about 3 p.m. on Tuesdsay after receiving reports that a van was being “filled with a disproportionate amount of gasoline.”
“When police arrived the driver of the van was taken into custody and determined to be in possession of a number of what was believed to be fraudulently obtained credit cards,” said VPD spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham in an email.
Witnesses at the scene Tuesday afternoon reported seeing a white panel van with large white gas tanks in the back.
The arrest comes two weeks after another white van burst into flames and explosions, only blocks away on Oak Street. That van became engulfed in large flames after crashing into a concrete wall near 54th Avenue and Oak Street on Oct. 7.
Police initially reported the van could have been a mobile meth lab, but later determined the blaze was “the result of the van illegally containing large containers and quantities of gasoline.”
Later that day, two Coquitlam men, aged 19 and 25, showed up at hospital with serious burns, and police said at the time they were treating the two as persons of interest in the case.
Fincham said it was too early to say if there was a connection between Tuesday’s gas station arrest and the van explosion two weeks earlier on Oak Street.
