When you live on an island, things that have to be imported are expensive. For example, on the Caribbean island of Aruba, gasoline costs more than $4 per gallon. That would make it fairly expensive to be a full-time taxi driver, wouldn’t it? Yes, if it weren’t for one driver’s brilliant yet illegal trade secret: sailing to Venezuela with a bunch of gas cans.

Bloomberg Businessweek outlined this scam after meeting the driver. It’s pretty simple: he sails to Venezuela maybe once a week with a whole lot of small containers, then fills them at the national gas price of 1/5 of a U.S. penny per gallon. Yes, that is the actual price.

Venezuela has a few strange accidents of history going for it leading to that gas price: first, they’re a country with vast oil reserves. Second, they have a socialist government that heavily subsidizes their gas production. Third, economic crises have led to inflation that has devalued their currency compared to other countries, making Venezuela a really great place to pick up some cheap gas.

The taxi driver, who already makes decent money since he mostly drives American tourists around, says that he saves around $17,000 a year by making these very illegal trips to Venezuela.

How an Aruba Taxi Driver Saves $17,000 Bootlegging Venezuela Gas [Bloomberg Business]

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