Police catch seven suspects in secondhand cooking-oil case in Quebec
On Thursday the police arrested seven people in Laval and Montreal suspected stealing used cooking oil.
There were nine arrest warrants in total issued for all the suspects related to Mascouche cooking-oil theft. The arrestees were pressed charges of theft and conspiracy to commit the crime.
The companies in Quebec are the targets
In accordance with oil-industry experts in Canada, more than 11 million dollars of taxes are missing annually due to growing theft of cooking oil. About one-third of that amount is being stolen from firms in Quebec.
“The issue has become so rampant that minimum of one-fifth of the used cooking oil it recovers from customers is being pilfered,” claims the spokesman of Sanimax at Enquête, Radio-Canada’s analytical program.
This quantity comprises about 150 metric tonnes of oil weekly only for Sanimax.
A lof of criminals are working for legitimate companies dealing in oil-recuperation, as per Enquête discovery.
The issue is extremely noticeable in Quebec, where round 4 MUSD which is about 40% of country’s total is being stolen.
Some of the employees of Huies Biocycle were stealing used oil from their rival’s containers overnight. The management of the firm in the North of Montreal had no idea about such things happening.
Used cooking-oil: fluid treasure
The time when secondhand oil was perceived as waste is gone.
Nowadays it is considered to be a fluid treasure – a comparatively recent origin of income for restaurant businesses.
The oil is mainly used in pet food production and cosmetics.
The growing cost of biodiesel has become the reason used oil’s demand being far ahead its supply.
During the last few years the cost of used cooking oil has risen by 300%, reaching about eight-hundred dollars per tonne.
Pascal Demers, Sanimax director of sales, mentions that people are very well aware that the goods they are buying are stolen, however, they still care more about the volumes.
Police discovers no losses of used cooking-oil
Near 200, 000, 000 kilos of used cooking oil are being produced by restaurant businesses annually in Canada.
Robert Geoffrey, the chairman of Distribution Katrina, insists that police do not look precisely into crimes related to oil stealing. Thus, the thieves are punished seldom.
“Police don’t notice the millions of dollars behind such crimes. In addition, they remain indifferent to losses”, Geoffrey mentioned.
Big recycling companies have spent a lot of money to put the crimes to an end and to make the security better, but the result is not comforting.
The State of California passes a respective law
A similar problem persists not only in Canada.
Approximately 75 million dollars of taxes are not paid due to used cooking-oil theft, as per American National Renderers Association.
In August California passed an anti-theft law to fight the issue and strengthen the protection of biodiesel business.
The fine is set at 10K USD, and adopted laws empower the police to confiscate the vehicle used for collecting oil and force the owners to get a necessary license which needs to be displayed on the van afterwards .
The citizens of the state are asked to provide whatever information on oil theft they might have on a website made up especially for this kind of complaints.
