CLARKS SUMMIT, Pa. — Restaurants in the Clarks Summit area have been dealing with cooking oil thefts for the last few years, but police have never been able to catch the thieves in the act. This time, however, police say you could all but smell it coming.
Cooking oil theft has become a common crime in the northeastern United States, including parts of our area. Clarks Summit Police Chief Christopher Yarns says his department has received dozens of reports.
"It's come to service in the last few years. I guess there's a black market for it, of sorts. They take this stuff, and they take it to New Jersey, I believe, and they off-load it, and they get quite a bit of money. Of course, stealing, there's no cost to them other than the equipment and their time," said Chief Yarns.
The thieves' actions often fly under the radar.
"They don't really stand out," said the chief. "Driving down the road, nobody notices it. Driving behind a business in a Penske truck during the daytime, nobody thinks too much about it."
But Wednesday morning was different. Someone from Hooked Restaurant in the Abington Shopping Center noticed a suspicious vehicle behind the building and notified police. Hooked told us cooking oil has been stolen from their vats at least six times. The truck was later seen outside Dino & Francesco's Pizza in the same complex. Chief Yarns was nearby.
"I was coming through the shopping center, and I spotted the vehicle coming behind the shopping center, and we were able to stop the vehicle."
Police say Lenin Sepulveda from New York was driving the Penske truck. Police arrested Sepulveda on a warrant from Lehigh County.
Chief Yarns says Sepulveda failed to appear in court on a charge of stealing cooking oil there.
Officers obtained a search warrant for the truck. They found a large amount of cooking oil in the back, along with equipment used to remove the oil from the restaurant's vats.
It's the first time Clarks Summit police caught someone in the act of stealing cooking oil.
"We aren't able to determine when they're going to show up, so we couldn't put some surveillance on the place. We just had to wait until the next time that it happened and hope we catch them," Chief Yarns said. "We got lucky."
Sepulveda is charged with unlawful taking and receiving stolen property for this incident. He's held at Lackawanna County Prison.
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