The heist began with a thief backing a large, white box truck up behind a Virginia mall around 3:30 a.m. one day in early April, according to a search warrant. The man wasn't looking for cash or electronics, but something stranger: used cooking grease.
The National Renderers Association estimates that up to $75 million worth of old cooking grease is stolen each year. Charles Gittins, a corporate lawyer and law enforcement liaison for Valley Proteins of Winchester, Virginia, said his company lost $5 million in grease thefts and an additional $1 million in damage to locking grease dumpsters in 2015, the last year they calculated totals. His company was also the victim in the recent Fairfax County case.
Mendez Flores told police he owned two box trucks and was part of a group that travels around northern Virginia and Maryland stealing grease, according to the search warrant, which describes Mendez Flores's statements to detectives. Gittins and LeVan said the Washington area is a hotbed of grease theft because the concentration of restaurants is high.
Mendez Flores also told detectives he had stolen between 800 and 900 gallons of grease the previous week from about seven businesses in northern Virginia, according to the search warrant.
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