The adulterated petroleum produced by the Trau Dien illegal fuel mixing facility, also called Crazy Buffalo, in Ho Chi Minh City is distributed to many fuel companies and filling stations in the southern provinces.

>> Inside a fake gasoline mixing facility Crazy Buffalo is a fuel depot secretly used as a place to adulterate A92 gasoline with unknown, potentially toxic chemicals imported from China, spanning thousands of hectares in the city’s Thu Duc District. The facility receives a number of tanker trucks on a daily basis, which come to extract pure A92 gasoline, and then take on the mixed, substandard petroleum, which will be sold in provinces such as Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Long An, and Tien Giang.

Crazy Buffalo supplies some dozens of thousands of liters of its self-made oil, which is produced by merely combining water with waste oil and Chinese-imported chemicals, to the An Hung Tuong Co Ltd, based in Ben Cat District, Binh Duong Province. Another Binh Duong-based company, the Kien Hoang Co Ltd, also sources a huge amount of adulterated gasoline from the facility, undercover Tuoi Tre journalists discovered. Nguyen Thanh Tung, head of the mixing team at Crazy Buffalo, said the pure A92 gasoline extracted from tanker trucks coming to the facility will be sold at the depot owner’s filling station in District 9. “The mixed, substandard petrol will be sold in other localities, including those in the Central Highlands,” said Tung.

Tanker truck drivers receive money from a customer after selling her the adulterated gasoline. Tuoi Tre

Dozens of tanker trucks enter and leave the depot on a daily basis, with those from distant areas allowed to buy at lower prices. “It is quite difficult to sell the [adulterated] gasoline in HCMC, but this is not the case in other localities, where the product is considered authentic and high quality,” a fake fuel producer said on condition of anonymity. However, there still are cases when the customers complain that there is too much water left in the oil, he added. “We just send a tanker truck there to take it back and replace the bad product.”“Upgrading” A83 petrol While A83 gasoline has been suspended from circulation, there are still many suppliers of this product, and the customers are mainly illegal fuel producers who turn the low-octane rate petroleum into higher grades – A92 and A95. Tung revealed that A83 gasoline is mixed with A92, and dyed with a green chemical before being sold to retailers. Dinh, 30, from Binh Dinh Province, said selling A92 gasoline partially made from A83 yields whopping profits, although it is not easy to source the low grade fuel due to the circulation ban. Meanwhile, a woman called Be, who runs a system of eight tanker trucks transporting fuel across HCMC, said she can supply A83 gasoline in any quantity. “Filling stations usually sell the adulterated A92 gasoline to reap an additional profit of VND500 a liter,” she revealed.