Stealing Grease

Money!:

In darkened alleyways, a slimy cat-and-mouse game is playing out in Texas and across America.

Men in trucks are fighting over a dirty and sometimes foul-smelling substance that restaurants once paid to get hauled off. Now it can be worth thousands per truckload. Liquid gold, some in the trade call it.

It’s grease — used kitchen cooking oil from deep fryers at KFC and the seasoned saucepans of the fanciest French restaurant.

The increasingly consolidated industry, ranging from mom and pop operations to publicly traded giants, is marked by cutthroat competition to claim restaurant accounts. And all of them have to grab their grease before a ragtag swarm of thieves gets there first.

...“You can pull in and drive off in five minutes. It can be $500 a night, $2,500 a week,” said Carrillo-Miranda, 37, a beefy man in a black T-shirt and jean shorts. “Even if your truck gets impounded, that’s $500. You’re still ahead $2,000 for the week.”

A 15-year veteran of the oil-recycling business, he spends several nights a month on stakeouts behind restaurants that contract with his employer. He has lost count of the locks he’s replaced because of thieves with bolt cutters. His boss, Brian Smith, says a Burleson man was caught using the firefighters’ Jaws of Life to break into tanks.

Licensed collectors have used surveillance cameras, extra-heavy metal lids and off-duty cops to protect their routes while lobbying for better local enforcement and stronger state laws. In a sign of how aggressive the grease war has become, a dozen production companies are looking into creating reality TV episodes.