BRAINPOWER from a York firm has outwitted oil smugglers in a South American Republic, saving millions of dollars.

Dunnington-based Authentix, which has just changed its name from Biocode, has used breakthrough technology to prove that about a fifth of all fuel sold in Guyana is illegal - be it gasoline, diesel or kerosene.

Now Dr Tim Wilkinson, a director of Authentix, and his 37-strong team of fuel testers in the republic have earned praise - and a lucrative contract - from Samuel Hinds, Guyana's Prime Minister, who as Minister for Energy oversees the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA).

The original Biocode testing kits mimic the chemistry of life to provide invisible marking for products.

By preparing antibodies which recognise only certain key molecules, the technology apes the process by which human beings respond to germs.

The markers were placed in fuel to a ratio of 100 parts per billion. Where its presence was not detected in later tests, then the fuel tested was clearly smuggled.

Dr Wilkinson's team found that four out of every ten petrol stations in Guyana all along its Atlantic coast had at least one tank with significantly diluted fuel on which no tax had been paid.

Already, huge savings have been made since word got around that the Authentix testing programme began late in October.

Since then, legal fuel sales there rose from about 30 million litres per month to 50 million litres through November. That is the equivalent in extra sales of US $ll million, of which about 30 per cent is tax.

Under the new contract, half Dr Wilkinson's staff will continue to mark legal fuel while the other half will take random samples. The ongoing project is expected to save the republic between $60 million and $100 million a year.

The York firm's contract is worth about one per cent of these savings.

Dr Wilkinson said that there was always a security risk involved but measures were in place to protect his team, which consisted of Authentix staff from both the U.S. and the UK.

He said: "There is always a security risk involved. As we were breaking the grip of smugglers taking millions of dollars out of the economy they wouldn't have been frightfully pleased to see us. But this is counterbalanced by the great good we are doing for the country. That is what turns us on."

Meanwhile, the Guyanese Prime Minister called a press conference to announce that the purpose of the Isotag fact finding programme was not to put people in jail, but to end smuggling.

However, he indicated that prosecutions against those smuggling illegal fuel should begin in earnest in the New Year.

As Biocode, the company gained major contracts in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Zambia, as well as projects in Europe and Far East.

Updated: 12:11 Thursday, December 18, 2003