LONDON (Reuters) - A Welsh police team dubbed "the Frying Squad" has been formed to sniff out motorists who fuel their cars with cooking oil from fish and chip shops in a bid to avoid paying high government fuel taxes.
Three Welsh motorists have already been caught and fined for using waste oil from restaurants selling the favourite deep-fried dish, the Times reported on Wednesday.
"I have halved my motoring costs since I started running my Subaru on cooking oil," the paper quoted one of those stopped as saying.
"The car runs just as well and even smells a lot better than diesel."
The drivers were fined 500 pounds and warned that persistent offenders may face up to seven years in jail.
Cooking oil mixed with methanol costs about 32 pence a litre, compared with 73 pence for a litre of diesel bought from a petrol station, the Times reported.