It didn't take long for Traci Johnson to figure out why her Ford Explorer wouldn't start after the new mother climbed behind the wheel to drive to a parenting class.

She only had to check the gas gauge. The Chesterfield County resident had filled her tank with $70 worth of gas the day before, but now it was empty.

Empty, too, were two 5-gallon gas cans she kept under her carport for yard appliances and a small motorcycle. They had been drained and "slung across my backyard" in Chesterfield's Tinsberry Trace subdivision off Jefferson Davis Highway.

Under the cover of darkness on June 25, gas thieves had siphoned away about $100 in gas.

"I had motion lights and everything," said Johnson, a disabled single mother who moved back to Chesterfield last year from Waynesboro with a 9-month-old son.

Johnson was surprised at how thoroughly her tank had been drained. There wasn't a drop left to turn over the engine.

"I think they even sucked the fumes out," joked Frances Johnson, Traci's mother.

As gas prices climb above $4 a gallon, Johnson and dozens of other central Virginia residents are being squeezed by gas-siphoning thieves who are spiriting away hundreds if not thousands of gallons of fuel.

Because most law-enforcement agencies don't track specific gas-theft crimes like siphoning, it's difficult to gauge just how universal or significant the problem has become. But many officials, citing mostly anecdotal evidence, believe it's on the rise.

Conversely, gas drive-offs appear to be on the decline as gas stations and convenience stores have tightened payment requirements.

In Chesterfield, for example, the number of gas drive-offs dropped from 37 during the first 27 weeks of 2007 to 26 during the same period this year. But siphoning thefts jumped from seven to 22, according to police records.

In rural New Kent County, drive-offs plunged from 27 to nine during the same period, while siphoning thefts stayed the same at three. Drive-offs in Colonial Heights dropped from five to one, but gas stolen from vehicles rose from zero to two.

Richmond's drive-offs have fallen by nearly half, from 48 to 25 during the first half of the year. Figures for other types of gas thefts weren't available.

Fuel larcenies of all types dropped from 84 to 72 in Henrico County, but police couldn't immediately determine how many of those were drive-offs and how many involved siphoning.

Computerized police record systems often don't note the types of larcenies that are reported.

"I think a lot of [the siphoning thefts] aren't even getting reported," said Dinwiddie County Sheriff's Capt. William Knott.

Knott cited a case involving his father-in-law, whose landscaping business trucks were drained of gas about a month ago outside his home. The thieves struck while he was away watching his grandson play baseball.

When he returned home, "all the gas caps were thrown off the ground . . . and the gas had been siphoned out of all of his trucks," Knott said.

He advised Knott, his son-in-law, but didn't file a formal report.

"I think sometimes [gas is siphoned] and maybe the people don't even realize it," Knott said. "They think, I had gas yesterday; where has it gone?"

Caroline County authorities have seen an upswing in gas thefts at several of the county's truck stops off Interstate 95. On at least four occasions in recent months, thieves have siphoned 50 or more gallons from tractor-trailers parked in the lots, said Caroline Sheriff's Maj. C. Scott Moser. That "hardly ever occurred before," he said.

Thieves even struck the Greater Richmond Chapter of the American Red Cross, which recently lost as much as 90 gallons of gas from three of its vehicles, spokeswoman Theresa House said. During the last week of May, gas was siphoned from a 12-passenger bus, a mini-van and a sedan while parked near the agency's headquarters at 410 E. Cary St., she said.

The area's biggest gas theft to date occurred in Prince George County in early June, when thieves broke into a fuel distributor's locked storage yard and hot-wired two tanker trucks. They fled north after filling the trucks with 4,800 gallons of gas, valued at about $20,000.

The tankers were later found abandoned at different locations in Maryland. But things have been relatively quiet in Prince George since, officials say.

"I don't think we've had an increase [in thefts], said sheriff's Lt. Brian Kei. "I think the businesses have protected themselves."

Gas retailers have made it nearly impossible to drive off without paying.

"You either have to prepay or use a credit card," noted Hanover Sheriff's Sgt. Chris Whitley. "And that in itself helps tremendously with all of the service stations that do that."

Johnson, meanwhile, has taken a few precautions of her own.

In addition to a locking gas cap on her Explorer, she and her father installed "dawn-to-dusk" security lights near her carport and driveway.

"My house is so lit up it looks like a Wal-Mart parking lot," she said.
Contact Mark Bowes at (804) 649-6450 or mbowes@timesdispatch.com.