Credit cards used for illicit fill-ups

RALEIGH -- Raleigh police say Dillard Roe Johnson stole gas cards from an engineering company, then hung around gas stations offering motorists fill-ups for $20 a pop. Now police are trying to track down everyone who took advantage of the special offer -- possibly hundreds of people.

Johnson, 27, of 507 Dacian Drive was charged Thursday with three felony counts of financial card fraud, three felony counts of breaking and entering into a motor vehicle and one count of financial card theft, according to a Wake County jail spokesman. Police said he broke into work trucks at Bass, Nixon and Kennedy in West Raleigh over the weekend.

Company president Ed Davenport said whoever stole the cards set up an illicit gas business at Triangle gas stations. "By Monday morning, $23,000 worth of gas had been charged on the cards," he said.

Scott Wilson, the firm's survey manager, said the cards were used more than 300 times at more than two dozen gas stations in Raleigh, Smithfield, Morrisville, Wake Forest and Youngsville. Gas purchases ranged from $5 to $400, with most falling between $50 and $100.

"He would stay at some stations for more than an hour, moving from pump to pump," Wilson said.

Bass, Nixon & Kennedy officials learned of the break-ins Sunday morning. Wilson said they were not too concerned because the thieves did not have the cards' activation numbers. Wilson said he isn't sure how someone gained the cards' numbers, though at some stores an activation number isn't needed to purchase gas at the pumps.

Johnson confessed to the break-ins and card thefts, according to a search warrant made public Thursday.

Jim Sughrue, a Raleigh police spokesman, said that investigators have not disclosed how many people used the illegal gas discount. He said charges could be filed against anyone whom investigators identify when they review convenience stores' surveillance tapes. "If it can be established that they knew the cards were stolen, then they could be charged with obtaining property by false pretenses," he said.

Wilson said detectives told him they will try to identify the customers by looking at license plates on security videotape. So far, only one detective has been assigned to track down the people.

Johnson was arrested Tuesday when police charged him with six vehicle break-ins and larcenies at B.E.S.T. Inc. and Mammoth Grating, both at 1108 Nowell Road, in July, Sughrue said.

He was being held at the Wake County jail in lieu of $85,000 bail, the jail spokesman said.

Davenport and Wilson said people who filled up using their company's cards should be looking over their shoulders.

"Twenty dollars to fill up?" Wilson said. "These people needed to have a conscience and ... had to know that was wrong. Some of them had probably just come home from church."