Beware the invasion of the chip fat bandits!

CRIMINAL gangs from England and Ireland are driving a surprising new multi-million pound crimewave – by heading to Scotland to steal used cooking oil.

Fast food outlets, restaurants and chip shops across the country have been targeted as thieves steal gallons of oil to sell on the black market as biofuel for vehicles.

Police say Scottish company Olleco, which legitimately collects used cooking oil from commercial premises, including US food giant McDonald’s, has lost an estimated £16 million of business because thieves travelled hundreds of miles to get there before them.

The level of thefts from commercial sites – with much of the oil ending up in tankers bound for Europe – is so concerning that Police Scotland has been carrying out intelligence-led operations with forces south of the Border.

Yesterday Inspector Alan Dron, Scotland’s national rural crime coordinator, said: ‘We’re talking serious organised crime here with gangs from all parts of the UK working together, often in a pincer movement, to target specific areas at the one time for maximum gain.

‘With the push for green energy, they can make a lot of money from cooking oil and it gives them the funds they need for other areas of their operations, such as drugs.’

The used oil, worth 35p to 40p per litre, should be legitimately collected and transported by a registered recycling company to a biofuel refinery, where it is turned into low-carbon biodiesel.

By law, many caterers in the UK are required to dispose of their cooking oil responsibly as it is a criminal offence to discharge it into sewers or drains. Many firms, such as McDonald’s, have it recycled into biodiesel which they then use to fuel their own vehicles.

Since the Russian invasion in February of Ukraine – which previously produced around half of the world’s sunflower oil – demand has rocketed, leading to opportunist criminals travelling to Scotland from as far as London and Ireland to target storage containers outside commercial premises.

Producing black market biodiesel from stolen oil can cost just a fraction of biodiesel made from legitimate oil.

Mr Dron added: ‘The criminals turn up in a converted van, which will take around 500 litres of used cooking oil in a tank. That gets transferred into a bigger tanker, which will then be taken to another area before being transported through to Eastern Europe.

‘The oil must go through a conversion process to turn it into biofuel. If it doesn’t and it is sold as converted biofuel when it is not, it will obviously destroy your engine.’

Police Scotland say the trend first became apparent in Angus earlier this year, with cases now also reported in the major cities, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as across the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway.

A spate of arrests recently took place across southern Scotland at police checkpoints after a number of individuals were found to be separately transporting large amounts of used cooking oil.

Olleco, based in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, declined to comment.

‘We’re talking serious organised crime here’