- April 25, 2024
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Two men were caught stealing over 7,000 pounds of used cooking oil, valued at almost $5,000, from a local restaurant in the early morning hours of Thursday Oct. 6.
Rui Gen Lin, 48, of St. Johns, and Rong Chen, 41, of Gainesville, were both caught by a patrolling Flagler County Sheriff's Office deputy pumping used cooking oil out of a vat behind Woody's Bar-B-Que off of Highway 100 and Interstate 95. The two are currently being held at Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility on $5,500 bond each.
Just after 3 a.m. Thursday, Deputy Kyle Gaddie found Lin and Chen wearing headlamps and pumping the oil into large drums in a plain white box truck, according to an arrest affidavit. The box truck had one 1,000-gallon drum filled to just under max capacity, and two completely filled 250-gallon drums, according to the affidavit.
Lin owns a company in Jacksonville known as L&L Recycling, LLC, which buys used oil and recycles it, according to a FCSO press release. Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said that the two were not hired by Woody's to take the oil, according to the press release.
“They own a company that buys and recycles old cooking oil but, in this case, they tried to increase their profits by stealing the oil,” Staly said. “Used cooking oil is often recycled to make diesel fuel and used in other products.”
Theft of cooking oil, Staly said, is on the rise across the county because the price of oil is rising. Used cooking oil is not only used commercially to make biediesel, but soaps, animal feed and cosmetics, according to GF Commodities' website. GF Commodities is a business that purchases and recycles production leftovers like cooking oil.
“This kind of crime is why we conduct business checks on closed businesses,” Staly said. “These two grease-bags made the mistake of coming to Flagler County and were taken to the Green Roof Inn!”
