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‘FRYING SQUAD’ CHASES FUEL CHEATS

Police smelt something fishy when they stopped a motorist in west Wales last week. It was the contents of his fuel tank.

Now they have begun a crackdown on drivers who are evading millions of pounds in fuel duty by filling their cars with everything from ordinary cooking oil to the waste from the local fish-and-chip shop.

The cooking oil, mixed with a dash of methanol, works out at 32p a litre compared with the pump price of diesel at 73p a litre. In the past few days, DyfedPowy Police have stopped three motorists using cooking oil as fuel.

Each received a £500 on-the-spot penalty, plus an additional £150 charge for towing away their vehicle if they did not have the means to pay immediately. They were warned that persistent offenders could face up to seven years in jail.

The drivers were committing an offence because all cars using public roads must pay fuel duty.

One driver who was among those caught last week said: “I halved my motorist cost since I started running my Subaru on cooking oil. The car runs just as well and even smells a lot better than diesel.”

The Automobile Association yesterday warned motorists of the dangers of running cars on cooking oil. John Stubbs, the head of technical policy at the AA, said: “It might work for a short time but it is not a good idea from a technical point of view. Cooking oils are much heavier than ordinary diesel and contain a higher proportion of water, so they would eventually rust the fuel pump.”

THE TIMES, Oct. 9, 2002