Two undocumented immigrants were arrested for stealing used cooking oil from disposal units outside closed DeLand restaurants, police said.
Moises Humberto Gonzalez Murillo, 30, and Ramiro Jose Gutierrez Lima, 38, Nicaraguan nationals, were arrested outside Garcia’s Mexican Grill at 3:51 a.m. Monday June 16, DeLand police said.
Both men were charged with grand theft each. They were being held without bail Tuesday June 17 and officials notified ICE of their arrests, records show.
According to DeLand police, an officer on patrol spotted a truck pulling a container early Monday June 16. Due to previous reports of grease thefts in the city, the officer followed the truck which stopped outside the closed Mexican restaurant on South Woodland Boulevard.
At the restaurant, the officer saw one man, later identified as Murrillo, disconnect a hose from the container where the restaurant stored its used grease, and bring it to the truck, an arrest report said.
After their arrest, the men said they had driven from Kissimmee to go around businesses collecting grease. The suspects said they have been going all over Florida for two months taking grease from disposal containers, the report noted.
The men said they sold the grease to a subcontractor in Ocoee who bought the grease for $.25 a gallon or $250 a tank, the reported.
The container hooked to the men’s truck had a capacity of 2,000 gallons and was almost full, police wrote in the arrest report.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Two undocumented men arrested for stealing used cooking oil outside restaurant in DeLand
Reporting by Patricio G. Balona, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
