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Gas-guzzler cars irony lost on US man found guilty of selling fraudulent biofuel credits

A US man has been found guilty of biofuel-related fraud after a fleet of expensive cars parked outside his home caused upset neighbours to call the police. These included a Rolls Royce Phantom, a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and a Maserati (none of which are known for their fuel efficiency. We note that a Prius was not amongst the cars listed).

Insights Gas-guzzler cars irony lost on US man found guilty of selling fraudulent biofuel credits
Thursday, 12 July 2012

A US Federal Government scheme requires that oil companies that sell petroleum in the US either produce renewable fuel themselves, or purchase a number of credits from producers of renewable fuel producers. These credits are known as renewable identification numbers (RINs). 
 
Rodney Hailey was found guilty of selling over 35 million false RINs, valued at $9 million to brokers and oil companies.  These RINs supposedly represented 87 million litres of bio-diesel fuel. However, they were fictitious, as Hailey did not produce any biofuel at all.  Nor did he have the facilities to do so from his ‘production facility’, a small rented garage. 
When asked by investigators, Hailey claimed that he paid employees and contractors to recover waste vegetable oil from 2,700 restaurants and that only the drivers who picked up the oil knew the names of the restaurants. However, Hailey could not provide the names of the drivers who were presumably not driving the Rolls or Lamborghini.
 
Parking a selection of supercars outside your house isn’t the subtlest way of pursuing a fraud.  As the prosecutor Stefan D. Cassella is quoted as saying in his closing arguments, “There is no prize for being the least clever criminal on your block.”[1]
 
Hailey faces a total of over 400 years in prison on eight counts of wire fraud, 32 counts of money laundering and two counts of violating the Clean Air Act (the latter being only 4 years jail time).

[1] Quoted in the New York Times: 'Fraud case shows holes in exchange of fuel credits'