Case Studies

Case Study 1 – Huge taxation loss prevented by TRACERCO™ Taggant

A major industrialised nation identified fuel adulteration practices as a major source of lost tax revenue. Due to the differential in taxation between consumer fuels (gasoline and diesel) and industrial solvents (benzene, toluene, hexane and kerosene in particular) fuel adulteration by addition of solvents to fuels had become endemic within the national market.

As well as lost tax revenue for the government (stated at between $450-$750 million), which in turn reduced the government’s ability to spend on social programmes, the fuel adulteration problem also led to poor air quality in urban areas and also serious damage to the electorate’s motor vehicles.

The government body responsible for fuel quality approached Tracerco to develop and implement a nationwide fuel adulteration programme that would not only allow the full extent of fuel adulteration to be identified within the supply chain but would also provide data that would allow prosecutions to be carried out.

After a relatively short period of project co-development with the government, Tracerco implemented a fully bespoke programme, which involved adding a range of TRACERCO™ Taggants to the countries entire solvent production and imports. In total, over a 120 million litres of solvent per month were tagged.

Before the programme could commence, extensive testing of the TRACERCO™ Taggants was required to ensure that the tracers added to the solvent had no impact on legitimate usage in industry.

By using different TRACERCO™ Taggants for each solvent producer and importer, when adulterated fuel was identified in the market, the entire supply chain of the adulterated fuel can be traced, allowing prosecutions to take place.

In the first two years of the programme over 1000 prosecutions were carried out by the government, significantly reducing the amount of adulterated fuel in the market, to the benefit of all citizens.

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