Grease thefts on the rise as several Louisville restaurants targeted for used cooking oil

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Thieves in Louisville are stealing used cooking oil from restaurants like never before, costing one recycling company thousands of dollars so far this year.

For the popular Mike Linnig's restaurant in southwest Louisville, Fridays are hustling and bustling during lent.

"We usually go through a hundred of these jugs a week. And they're 4.5 gallons to a jug," Bill Linnig, co-owner of the restaurant, said.

Those jugs hold cooking oil that becomes boiling grease in the fryer to make a plate full of fish and fries for happy customers.

But the oil's life cycle doesn't end there.

"After we've transferred it back this way and then we use a suction pump to pump it outside into our holding tanks," Linnig said. "Once we transfer it out here, then it becomes our waste grease removal company's responsibility."

However, thieves have been getting to it first.

Mike Linnig's has been a victim of waste grease theft twice in the last year.

"It just makes you mad," Linnig said. "Yeah it makes you mad."

In February, two men, Yunior Chaveco Gonzales and Diuslan Nicolas Dieguez Leyva, were arrested and charged with stealing used cooking oil from eight Louisville restaurants - La Bodeguita, Biscuit Belly, Feast, El Nopal, Fish House, Joy Luck, Taco City and The Eagle.

Map of cooking oil thefts at Louisville restaurants - 3.21.25 — This map shows the eight Louisville restaurants where thieves stole used cooking oil from storage tanks. *(WDRB image)*

Surveillance video from Fish House shows two people pulling up with a truck, putting a hose in the holding tank and suctioning out the used oil. Less than five minutes later, they were gone.

In March, according to police, Gonzales was back with a new partner in crime, Adan Chaveco Suarez.

Gonzales and Suarez were arrested for stealing from six additional Louisville restaurants - Daniel's Little Mexico, Gaslight Diner, Rec Bar, El Nopal, Cracker Barrel and Yoki Buffet.

In both cases, a total of $3,500 worth of used cooking oil was stolen.

Companies like Vocars Kentucky recycles that waste cooking oil into animal feed and biodiesel fuel.

"And that's where the thieves come in," Jay Ford, General Manager of Vocars Kentucky, said. "They want to make their money."

To prevent theft, some companies hire private investigators.

So far this year Vocars says it's down 30-thousand gallons of used cooking oil compared to last year, despite servicing more restaurants.

The restaurants they collect from also get a rebate on average of about a couple hundred dollars a month.

But it's unclear who the thieves are selling to.

"We want to find out who the end person is receiving this because that's where the problem is that we need to address," Ford said.

In the meantime, Mike Linnig's is planning to make changes to its procedures to keep the criminals away.

Ford says signs of a criminal include unmarked trucks and no uniforms.

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Grease thefts on the rise as several Louisville restaurants targeted for used cooking oil