A surveillance video acquired by the police shows that a man was taking a straw and inserting it into a motorcycle's gas tank and sucking gasoline.Screenshot of BRTV

Following the recent increase in gasoline prices, police in Beijing found a man stealing gasoline from the tanks of other motorcycles in a residential area. His tool was a straw.

A surveillance video acquired by the police shows that a man was inserting a straw into a motorcycle's gas tank and sucking gasoline. Another woman stood by and helped him keep watch. After an investigation, police found that the two suspects were engaged in express delivery industry. On the same day, the two went to a residential building to make a delivery and found that the motorcycle had run out of fuel.

"They wanted to save money on refueling because of the recent increase in gas prices, so they came up with this wrong idea," the police officer in charge of the case, said in an interview.

On the night, gasoline was sucked from three motorcycles with straw, totaling five liters. The two suspects have now been detained by police.

Netizens joked that it was not a "well-planned theft." 

"If he smokes a cigarette after sucking up gasoline, he will be in big trouble," a netizen wrote teasingly on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like social platform.