From the Harford County Sheriff’s Office:
On June 23, 2014 the Harford County Sheriff’s was contacted by a used a cooking oil recycling company in Baltimore in reference to suspected thefts that were occurring in Harford County. The owners told the deputy they’ve been in business for six years, and had recently seen a significant drop in oil returns, an estimated $1 million in losses.
On June 24, 2014 the Harford County Sheriff’s Office was alerted that one of the company’s oil trucks had made an unscheduled stop on Oak Avenue in Joppa, MD. Deputies responded and found the truck backed up to a garage owned by Richard Figueroa of Hunt Valley, MD. The driver, Cristian Cardona of Baltimore, MD, told deputies he was there to visit a friend. Figueroa told deputies Cardona was there to pick up waste, however the gauges on the truck indicated it was full.
Through the course of the investigation, it was determined the truck stopped at that garage more than 40 times between April and June. Deputies also determined that Cardona and another driver, Wilson Gutierrez of Baltimore, would offload the oil from their trucks in exchange for money. The truck would then be filled with waste from a refinery found in the garage, so it appeared the truck was full when it returned to the recycler.
After being refined in the garage, Figueroa shipped the stolen cooking oil out of state to be converted into Bio-Diesel. Figueroa, Cardona and Gutierrez were all charged via summons on September 15, 2014.
This is a growing national concern. Congratulations and kudos to the Sheriff’s Department for investigating and cracking what (from the article) seems to be an insider theft — the hardest to detect.
Seriously, $1,000,000.00 in used cooking oil? I’m Sorry but I have to call Bull $hit on this one. Restaurants would give that crap away! I know, theft is theft, but you gotta be kidding me!
Sorry everyone, I was definitely wrong on this one. I just went to Mahoney Oil’s website and discovered that USED COOKING OIL is worth $1.87 a gallon. Please disregard my earlier statement. I was ignorant to this fact………
As “SoulCrusher” discovered, used cooking oil is a BIG business. It’s also a dirty, smelly, rotten business, as a lengthy article in the New Yorker Magazine about 18 months ago made clear (the writer followed around a local used cooking oil collection vehicle in Texas for a month). Interestingly enough, there is huge pressure on local companies from national concerns that are driving up the price paid to the restaurants for exclusive rights to the oil (and therefore locking in the business), driving the local firms out of business). Remember, restaurants put the greasy, smelly, hot stuff out after they close and clean up — so collection is typically around 3 am, in back alleys. We should all be glad that the stuff is recycled into useful bio-diesel, but we should also be aware of environmental issues and criminal issues that this relatively new industry engenders.
Never ceases to amaze me what criminals think of to make money. Genius until you get caught.
These were some slippery guys.
Money pit 1 found it. They thought they smelled a million donuts being cooking in da oily grease during a fly over. They said the dollar value was that high in order to pay for their fuel used to date.
I wonder if Figueroa, Cardona and Gutierrez are “undocumented” Mexicans.
With just a minimum of effort you could have found out Figueroa is African American…..
But you aren’t that smart are you…
Hispanic isn’t equal to Mexican and Blacks (ergo, African American) can be Hispanic too. There isn’t anything worse in America than uneducated white guys (I am white, by the way). Oh, Being a criminal knows no race or nationality either.
This is just greasy.
So, its being used for Green Energy. You cant have it both ways hippies.