Cooking oil may be the new copper, a commodity ripe for thievery and easy to resell.

Recently, federal agents in the Rochester region arrested six individuals, accused of stealing used cooking oil with plans to sell it for refinement into biodiesel fuel. While this appears to be a unique case locally, it is a crime that has become far more common nationwide.

The Albany region and Long Island this year reported a spike in the theft of cooking oil from barrels and storage containers typically left outside of restaurants. Restaurants across the country can generate up to three billion gallons of used cooking oil a year, according to past research by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

"This crime has happened plenty of times," said Sumit Majumdar, the owner of Buffalo Biodiesel, a North Tonawanda, Erie County business that sells grease and oil to companies for the creation of biodiesel fuels. Majumdar has long been vocal about the prevalence of theft, but said it for many years has been ignored.

Law enforcement investigators have likened the crimes to the common theft of copper from homes and business. Just as stolen cooking oil often goes through a intermediary to biodiesel companies, copper materials typically went from thieves to middlemen then into a booming international copper trade.

Majumdar alleged that some of the oil thieves he has encountered through his experience and research are working for organized crime circles. The hesitancy by law enforcement to tackle the crime has allowed it to fester, he said.

"It's like anything else," he said. "If law enforcement does its job, this gets resolved very quickly."

He said he has lost millions through theft.

Arrested for alleged thefts in Monroe County were: Guodeng Chen, Didi Huang and Fangfang Yan, all of Pittsford, according to federal prosecutors, and Ruimao Yang, Yan Han and Wen Xiao Zhang, all of New York City. They are accused of conspiracy and the transportation and sale of stolen goods in interstate commerce.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Meghan McGuire said in a news release that they are accused of stealing the oil from restaurants across the county, and the cooking oil can be refined into biodiesel fuel and resold for $4 to $5 a gallon.

The investigation included the Monroe County Sheriff's Office and the federal Department of Homeland Security. Sheriff's deputies first encountered two of the accused leaving a restaurant in a storage truck in the early hours of an April morning last year. The truck's ownership tracked to a packaging supply company, and the investigation mushroomed from there, leading to court-ordered tracking devices on the company trucks and search warrants at businesses located at the multi-use facilities at 300 and 350 Commerce Dr. in Henrietta.

During the warrant executions last year, deputies "discovered 12,461 gallons of unrefined oil, worth over $73,000, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office. "A review of documents and records found during the search warrants revealed that the defendants sold and shipped the stolen oil to a refinery located in Erie, Pennsylvania."

Investigators were able to track two shipments totaling 95,320 gallons of oil from the warehouse to the Pennsylvania refinery. The accused were paid $60,051 for the shipments, prosecutors allege.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Cooking oil thefts on the rise; 6 arrested in Rochester NY region