What blossomed into a full federal probe, officials and court papers say, exposed a criminal operation responsible for thefts at hundreds of restaurants.

The investigation started small; a lone private eye hiding in the dark outside a brick warehouse in Central Falls.

In the hours before dawn, a white Ford truck, emitting an odor of stale French fries, would pull up alongside the building. The driver would connect the hose running out of the plastic tank in the truck�s bed to a hole in the brick wall.

A pump hummed. In the span of minutes, hundreds of gallons of used restaurant frying oil, bits of batter and grease got sucked inside.

All the while, David Benoit watched. A retired Massachusetts state trooper, he had extensive experience in criminal investigations. A spate of restaurant thefts, a kind unfamiliar to most people, had linked that truck to two old men: Andrew and Bruce Jeremiah.

Now, as Benoit watched over several August nights in 2012, he became convinced he was witnessing a criminal enterprise at work.

That enterprise would draw the attention of the FBI after Benoit reported following the truck one night over state lines as it visited seven closed restaurants in Raynham, Middleboro and Lakeville, Mass. The truck disappeared behind each one and siphoned off what Benoit would later estimate was more than $5,000 worth of old cooking oil.

A few years ago that oil was worthless. Restaurants paid someone to haul it away. Today it�s a valuable commodity that, once refined, can be used as an alternative fuel for diesel engines. Rendering and bio-fuel companies will pay restaurants as much a $1.40 gallon for their grease.

The dramatic flip in value has sparked a national crime wave, with thieves breaking locks and cutting fences to get at what was once discarded waste. The crimes have slashed into the profits of national rendering companies, whose representatives have appealed to the FBI to find and prosecute grease thieves.

And so it wasn�t long after Benoit alerted local authorities about what he�d discovered in Central Falls that federal agents took up surveillance positions outside the Conduit Street warehouse.

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What blossomed into a full federal probe, officials and court papers say, exposed a criminal operation responsible for the theft of $430,000 worth of used cooking oil from hundreds of restaurants throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island between early 2011 and November 2012.

Those documents identify the kingpins of the operation as the two elderly Jeremiah brothers, who live together in Cranston: Andrew is 77; Bruce is 71.

Both men � first cousins of retired Family Court Judge Jeremiah Jeremiah � have pleaded innocent to charges of conspiring to transport stolen goods over state lines. If convicted, they could face years in prison. It would not be their first time behind bars.

Both served time in the 1990s for possession and intent to traffic marijuana after the police found 425 pounds of the drug in a Providence warehouse. They were freed in 1997 after the state Supreme Court ruled that the police had used a search warrant that was so broad as to be unconstitutional.

The grease investigation that led to their arrest and that of a third suspect, Anthony Simone Sr., 59, who has since pleaded guilty, included at least one cooperating suspect who wore a wire.

The recorded conversations outlined in court documents captured dialogue befitting a slapstick crime movie.

In one conversation, detailed in the brothers� indictment, Andrew Jeremiah, described as the brains of the operation, is heard briefing Simone on his successful shopping exploits for a new pickup truck camper:

�We want this thing to look like � the TruGreen truck. You know? This way here you don�t see what�s in it. You like that? � I�m just trying, you know, make it as mysterious as possible.�

The objective, �is so we can rob things right in the [expletive] daytime. I got it all figured out.�

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Andrew Jeremiah did not appear particularly worried about his future last Monday as he arrived late to U.S. District Court dressed in a red sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers.

�Good morning, Bill,� Jeremiah said, greeting Assistant U.S. Attorney William J. Ferland, the man who could put him behind bars, with what sounded like genuine warmth.

Ferland�s shoulders slumped.

�Hello, Mr. Jeremiah,� he sighed.

On the agenda: Jeremiah�s motion for a new attorney. After months of having James O�Neil represent him � the former Rhode Island attorney general whose office helped arrest the Jeremiahs for drugs in 1992 � Andrew Jeremiah had chosen now to use a public defender.

Was he concerned about going to jail? a reporter asked.

�I�d rather not discuss it right now,� Jeremiah answered. Instead, he launched into a litany of his entrepreneurial pursuits over the years: vintage cars, jewelry, emblems, electronics, real estate, restaurants, nightclubs.

�Do you remember Bill Rooney?� a longtime photographer for The Providence Journal, he asked. �He took pictures of me for years,� Jeremiah said, smiling as he recalled better times. �I was once on the cover of your Sunday magazine [The Rhode Islander] as the most eligible bachelor in Rhode Island. It was the Valentine�s issue.�

What about this case? he was asked again.

�There�s been a lot of cases,� Andrew Jeremiah said dismissively.

But he hinted at his defense. �People pick at my trash barrels for recyclable cans,� he said. �They�re never charged with a crime.�

His brother�s lawyer, Keven McKenna, more fully explained the defense strategy during a July court hearing in which Bruce Jeremiah was seeking the return of property confiscated by federal agents � including 6,400 gallons of old cooking oil.

�The core of my motion is that Congress hasn�t made it a crime to steal garbage,� McKenna told U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. �It�s not vegetable oil, your honor. It�s garbage. It�s garbage.�

�Mr. McKenna, your clients, in their legitimate business, deal in this commodity�They deal in this good,� McConnell responded. �Doesn�t that undercut your argument that used vegetable oil is anything but a good?�

No, said McKenna.

�You want your garbage back?� deadpanned the judge.

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While the Jeremiahs had legitimate arrangements with a few restaurants to collect their used oil, most of the product they sold was stolen, the federal government alleges.

The indictment, handed up in December 2012, outlines how the alleged criminal conspiracy worked starting in early 2011:

Operating under the business names of Jeremiah Motors Corp., Removal Services and Green Energy, Anthony Simone drove the truck and stole the oil; Bruce Jeremiah supervised the oil�s collection and storage in the warehouse; and Andrew Jeremiah arranged for its sale.

Andrew had approached a New Hampshire company about buying the used oil they collected. The oil would be trucked to New Hampshire by a legitimate trucking company.

The Jeremiahs provided Simone and at least one other person with a list of businesses in Rhode Island and Massachusetts where used vegetable cooking oil could be found.

The brothers told Simone to steal the oil between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. and then unload the truck at the Central Falls warehouse. Simone collected between 800 and 1,000 gallons each trip, sometimes hitting a dozen restaurants in the same area in one night.

Some nights Andrew Jeremiah followed behind the truck, driving his gold Mercedes.

Some nights went better than others.

�I didn�t like Dartmouth at all last night,� Simone told Bruce in a conversation recorded Nov. 2, 2012. �There were cops everywhere.�

�All you do, all you do is, you just be careful,� counseled Bruce. �Take care of yourself, that�s all.�

Andrew Jeremiah had some other advice for Simone: �Let�s go toward Connecticut. Let�s go down toward Mystic. Spread it out��

Simone apparently wasn�t receptive: �You don�t want to listen? Fine,� said Andrew Jeremiah. �You�re just gonna burn it up that�s all.�

Then he confided with Simone: �I�m working on some stuff I�ve always wanted to work on. Doing it myself. I don�t even tell my brother what I do. �Cause I know a lot of these things. I was checking out stuff.�

Andrew Jeremiah shared that he had been doing reconnaissance work behind some restaurants in Providence, places like South Street Caf� and Rick�s Roadhouse.

�You got these containers, they got padlocks on them and they got a screen on them this big. I measured it with a quarter. I�m working on getting a pump with a narrow probe�I got it all figured out.�

�You can�t be stupid and lazy and keep being a criminal,� Andrew Jeremiah is recorded saying. �That�s how people get caught.�

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The Jeremiahs stored the oil in large vats in the warehouse until they had enough to call in an 18-wheeler to pick it up.

On Oct. 12, 2012, for instance, Bruce Jeremiah arranged for and supervised the delivery of about 50,360 pounds of vegetable cooking oil to the New Hampshire refinery, which was not named in the indictment. Federal authorities say there is no evidence the company knew the product was stolen.

In November 2012, investigators requested search warrants for the warehouse and the brothers� home at 35 Whitewood Drive, Cranston. They confiscated the Ford truck, about 6,400 gallons of used cooking oil, and in the Jeremiahs� home, records, computers and $29,230 in cash found in a boot in a closet.

McKenna, Bruce Jeremiah�s lawyer, said in a telephone message that he was too busy to discuss the case with a reporter. He suggested that a reporter send him an email with questions. McKenna did not respond to the email.

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As federal investigators prepared to raid the warehouse in November 2012, they called on Newport Biodiesel for help. The Newport company collects used oil for resale from almost 2,000 area restaurants.

�We got a call from the FBI saying, �We got this thing and we�re going to need your trucks,�� recalled operations manager Donald Booth. ��When we call you, you will need to scramble and go where we tell you to go.��

When the call came in, the company sent three trucks to the Central Falls warehouse. Booth went along.

�I think we were a little taken aback by the scale of the operation.�

Inside the cavernous brick building stood several large settling tanks being used to separate the used oil from the French fry bits and congealing fats.

Since the arrest of the Jeremiahs, Booth and federal authorities say the number of reported grease thefts has declined sharply. But some smaller operators are still out there stealing, they say.

It�s a crime that some police departments are slow to recognize, says Blake A. Banky, president of Newport Biodiesel.

�If you think about it, it is a theft that occurs in a place where you keep your trash, behind a corral where the garbage usually is,� he said. �The mindset is, �What�s the problem?� But this waste oil is no longer a waste product. It is a valuable product. And these thefts are wreaking real damages on restaurants and companies like Newport Biodiesel.�

No trial date has been set for either Andrew or Bruce Jeremiah.

Their alleged partner in grease, Anthony Simone, is scheduled to be sentenced in June.