Municipal officers here have imposed hefty fines on 238 trucks for stealing sand from different locations, Al-Hayat daily reported. The officers, together with pertinent authorities, have been running inspection visits to curtail this practice and eventually end it. "We have so far conducted 45 field inspection visits and caught 238 trucks and fined them a total of SR714,000. All the trucks were stealing sand from locations outside the urban areas," said Faris Al-Oraij, head of Dammam Municipal Office. The trucks have been impounded while the pertinent authorities have been notified in order to take necessary measures against them, he added, stressing that the crackdown campaigns on violators will continue until this illegal practice has been eradicated. Economic and environmental experts have more than once warned against the dangerous and negative effects of stealing soft sand, noting that sand is stolen by organized gangs run by Saudis and have expatriate workers with them. These gangs earn hundreds of thousands of riyals every month and have even created a black market where they sell sand for higher prices. A load of sand can be sold for as much as SR2,000 a day, that is around SR1.2 million a month from one truck only. The gangs always steal sand from government-owned property and lands although there are some locations where they can take sand free of charge. But they prefer the state-owned lands. Authorities have been working hard to find drastic solutions to sand stealing. Some companies and contractors do not apply for a proper permit before transporting sand and they do this on purpose in order to generate a lot of profits.
