ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – A recent heist targeting a St. Johns County gas station was carried out with a head-turning diversion: a scantily clad woman.
It happened Tuesday morning at an undisclosed gas station after a white Ford F-350 pickup truck pulled up next to a gas pump and three people climbed out, according to an incident report.
When it was all said and done, one of the fuel tanks had been drained of nearly 200 gallons of gasoline.
A witness told deputies he was filling up his tank at a nearby pump when two men opened the pickup’s front and rear doors and began pumping gas while a woman with them went inside.
"(The woman) was wearing a very tight sundress – no bra, no underwear, just showed everything," the witness told News4Jax. "So everyone she walked by, she got their attention."
The woman, who wore a short red dress and was described as “flirtatious and distractive,” asked a clerk to use the bathroom. Afterward, she left the business in the truck with the two men.
It wasn’t until an hour later that the clerk realized something was wrong.
After a customer mentioned that the key box on one of the tanks was left open, the clerk discovered the tank’s fuel levels had plummeted from 431 gallons to a little more than 237 gallons.
According to the report, a deputy found the keypad door had been pried open using a tool and the wires inside disconnected. A single fingerprint was pulled from the top of the gas pump.
The witness told investigators he had no idea the men parked near him were siphoning gas into an external tank in the bed of their truck because the vehicle’s doors obscured his view.
"They were stealing gas and I didn’t have a clue," he said.
At this point, it’s fair to wonder how the theft went unnoticed by those inside the store. The witness said there’s a simple explanation for that: a red dress that left nothing to the imagination.