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Back in July, a new chain of gas stations called the Freedom Fuel Network popped up in the Northeast, seemingly out of nowhere, with extremely attractive prices. It seemed to have friends in high places right from the very start, with its first retail site promoted by the White House’s official X account, and President Donald Trump lauding the company for “stepping up” as “a VERY smart Retailer.” The federal government denied that it was subsidizing Freedom Fuel or involved with the company on any level, so, naturally, people wondered how it managed to swoop in with gas 30 cents per gallon below the national average.
A new lawsuit purports to have the answer to that question: The gas was stolen.
That’s the claim from the Mansfield Oil Company of Gainesville, Georgia, which has sued New Jersey-based distributor KRSM for allegedly neglecting to pay it for 1.1 million gallons of fuel, valued at $4 million. KRSM then allegedly turned around and sold some of that gas to Freedom Fuel at a discount, which it would’ve been able to do, per the suit, because it never paid Mansfield for it in the first place. That’s the plaintiff’s explanation for why Freedom’s product was indeed so cheap.
“Despite the fact that the last delivery was more than five weeks ago, KRSM has not paid one dollar towards the $4,000,000 that KRSM owes Mansfield,” said Urs Broderick Furrer, the lawyer representing Mansfield, in a statement quoted by The New York Times. While it’s unclear where each of those 1.1 million gallons ended up, Mansfield believes that some of it was delivered to at least 10 of Freedom’s 29 stores across New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
A Freedom Fuel Network station in West Berlin, New Jersey, seen on August 10. Al Drago/Getty Images
Meanwhile, Mauro Tucci, the lawyer representing KRSM President Syed Kazmi, said that “KRSM disputes the allegations in this case, which is an accounting dispute over fuel invoices mis-priced by Mansfield Oil.” It’s worth pointing out that Mansfield says it wasn’t able to actually invoice KRSM until late July “due to a data error,” and that KRSM ultimately refused the bill. Mansfield claims that Kazmi then told it over the phone in the following weeks that he would pay, but he didn’t.
Making this all even stranger, ever since Freedom Fuel Network’s inception—and despite its social media boost from the Trump administration—nobody has been able to figure out who actually owns the chain. KRSM and Kazmi deny any relationship to it. And a White House spokesperson told the Times that “the Administration has had zero contact or dealings with the defendant: KRSM Inc or Sayed Kazmi.”
Mansfield’s lawsuit was filed August 19 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Judge Gerald Austin McHugh has directed KRSM to hold $2.75 million at minimum in a bank account during litigation, and Mansfield is pursuing “at least $3.998 million plus interest, costs and other damages” from KRSM, per MDM Distribution Intelligence.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
