Oct. 30--Here's a good example of using stolen goods to make good. It this case, it's gasoline going into the right tanks.

The Sheriff's Office has received permission to fill up its vehicles with gas seized in a large sting operation. That's as it should be.

And there are instances where law-enforcement agencies are allowed to use confiscated drug money to help run their operations.

Let's use confiscations from criminal activity as a means of lightening the load on El Paso County taxpayers. Somebody's got to pay for gasoline. Why not let the crooks take the loss?

In Operation Filler Up late last month, sheriff's deputies arrested seven people on suspicion of stealing Pemex gasoline and selling it on the black market for $1.40 a gallon.

Deputies confiscated 2,835 gallons at a makeshift gas station in far East El Paso.

Kudos to Judge Rosalio Munoz, who reviewed the seizure and awarded the Sheriff's Office what amounts to a departmental savings of more than $7,100. Munoz is Court No. 4 justice of the peace.

Pemex is Mexico's state-owned petroleum company and has a pipeline running through 28 miles of East El Paso County and the Lower Valley -- and into Mexico. Mexico, although an oil producer, has no gasoline refineries.

This pipeline was spearheaded by PMI of Houston -- a subsidiary of Pemex -- a year ago. It met with opposition from area residents and state Rep. Chente Quintanilla, but was allowed by a federal ruling to operate, nonetheless.

It's alleged the theft

ring siphoned the gas into tanker trucks, transported it to the makeshift station and sold it for illegal profit.

Thanks to the sting, and the judge saying OK, the profit now goes to the Sheriff's Office -- and to county taxpayers.

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