The New York State Police issued a public advisory on July 20 telling businesses that store used cooking oil to stay vigilant. Troopers have responded to multiple recent attempts to siphon oil from restaurant storage tanks. Investigators believe more businesses were hit and never called it in.
That last part is the line collectors should read twice.
The advisory cites two incidents. On July 9, Troopers from SP Deposit responded to River Run Restaurant on Faulkner Road in Sanford. A man was seen with a green hose running from the restaurant's oil containers into a commercial Ford van, pumping. The restaurant owner blocked the van in before Troopers arrived. Donaldo Jones Morel Castro, 30, of the Bronx, was charged with attempted petit larceny and released on an appearance ticket.
On July 18, an employee at Lupo's Char-Pit on East Main Street in Union confronted two men working a rental box truck with New Jersey plates. They left. Troopers and the Broome County Sheriff's Department stopped them on I-81 in Binghamton. Inside the truck: large tanks of used cooking oil, industrial hoses, and a gas-powered water pump.
Barry D. Charles, 26, and Nasir A. Bey, 29, both of Newark, were each charged with attempted petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, possession of burglar tools, and conspiracy in the sixth degree. All misdemeanors. Both were released on appearance tickets.
The State Police explanation for why this is happening is short and correct: used cooking oil is valuable because it gets recycled into renewable fuels. That is our whole industry in one sentence, and it is now printed on a police blotter.
Troopers gave restaurants four steps. Cameras covering the storage area. Well-lit tank placement. Locks on containers. Call 911 on suspicious vehicles.
Notice who is being asked to do all four.
For collectors and haulers, this is the real cost. A stolen tank is your gallons, not the restaurant's. You paid for the container, you built the route, you carry the rebate obligation. When a box truck out of Newark empties a tank in Broome County, your driver shows up to a dry stop and your account owner wonders why the service feels unreliable or the rebate checks are not coming in.
The gear in that truck also tells you something. Tanks, industrial hose, a gas-powered pump. That is not opportunistic. That is a route.
Collectors should treat this advisory as a sales tool and an operations flag. Locked containers and camera coverage are now police-endorsed, which makes the upsell conversation easier. And if your Southern Tier stops are running light, the reason may not be volume.
