LATHAM – The parking lot behind Paesan’s Pizza on Route 9 in Latham has turned into a high crime zone in recent years. The commodity thieves have been after, that sits at the bottom of a 300 gallon tank, used cooking oil, is considered liquid gold.

The cooking oil that Paesan’s Owner Frank Scavio dumps into the steel tank becomes a byproduct from his kitchen. Scavio sells the oil to a Massachusetts refinery that in turn converts it into valuable biofuel.

All too often however, before the refinery workers arrive to rightfully retrieve the used cooking oil, thieves, that have regularly been photographed on Scavio’s surveillance system, wrongfully get there first.

“We do a lot of volume so this tank is always full,” Scavio said. “Every time they got us, they got us for a thousand dollars or fifteen hundred dollars. The (biofuel) company has been losing millions and millions of dollars. We’ve been losing thousands of dollars.”

To protect the pizza profits, the oil company has engineered what they hope will be a pilfer-proof steel container, complete with a concealed anti-lock device.

Paesan’s is one of the first restaurants in the country to have the prototype in place.

“We have multiple locations so for us it was costing us tens of thousands of dollars per year,” Scavio said. “With inflation, this rebate check really helps a lot and for us not getting that rebate check, you get really frustrated.”

Adding to the frustration, the reality that cooking oil thieves often get off with just a ticket, they pay a fine, and their back out on the street to reoffend.

For now, Scavio is hoping for the best but expecting something less.

“Thieves are pretty smart,” he said, “I’m sure they’re going to figure out a way how to break in. We’re hoping we’re a couple of steps ahead of them.”

The pilfer-proof prototype is phase one in the overall plan to stop the cooking oil thieves. Phase two will include holding companies accountable that are purchasing the stolen product.