HB201

HB201 expands the Financial Crimes Intelligence Center’s card-fraud work to include motor-fuel theft and devices used to manipulate fuel pumps or their payment terminals for an unlawful purpose. It also explicitly includes credit-card shimmers in the definition of a skimmer. The act took effect September 1, 2025. It changes the center’s responsibilities, not the punishment for a newly created crime. Final act, Sections 1–3 and 6

The center must help law enforcement, other government agencies and listed financial, educational and merchant organizations develop strategies to detect manipulation devices, respond when they are found, and prevent motor-fuel theft. At a law-enforcement or government agency’s request, it may also assist with any matter within its expertise. “May assist” is permission, not a requirement to take every requested case. Section 3

HB201 adds motor-fuel theft to the information the center may collect centrally and to its required annual reporting on geographic risk, statistics and operational plans. It also adds motor-fuel-theft public outreach as an allowed use of grant money. It does not award a grant to every affected merchant or appropriate new money. The existing grant authority depends on available appropriations. Sections 4–5 · Current grant provision

The act’s definition of “motor fuel theft” is specific: theft under Penal Code Section 31.03 that qualifies for the finding described in Code of Criminal Procedure Article 42.019. That article concerns dispensing fuel into a vehicle’s tank at a retail establishment and then leaving without paying. The manipulation-device definition separately covers unlawful alteration of a fuel-metering device or unattended payment terminal. These are the statutory definitions, not a claim that every kind of fuel-related misconduct is identical. Section 1 · Article 42.019

For readers looking up the law today: HB201 amended Occupations Code Chapter 2312, but a separate 2025 law, SB1499, moved the center’s provisions to Government Code Chapter 426 and expanded its work to broader payment fraud. The current official chapter reflects both laws, including separately displayed versions of some provisions. The move and broader payment-fraud provisions were not amendments to HB201 itself. SB1499, Section 1 · Current Financial Crimes Intelligence Center chapter