Beer keg thieves billed over £5m scam

A gang of beer keg thieves in the UK who sold on £5 million worth of stolen barrels for scrap metal have been ordered to pay back £40,000 plus court costs.

Around 90,000 stolen beer kegs were sold as scrap, costing breweries £5m to replace (Photo: guardianlv.com)

The group, who operated around the East Midlands area of England, ran an illegal operation that saw 90,000 empty beer kegs intercepted before they made it back to their breweries to be refilled.

The empty barrels, worth £65 each, were then sold off as scrap metal for as low as £5 each, making the gang around £1.4m in ill-gotten cash.

The thefts cost the several brewery firms involved more than £5m in total to replace the barrels according to The Express and Star.

The operation was stopped when noise complaints were received by police because of the sound of metal grinding at a commercial property in the town of Oldbury.

Anthony Geeling, David Fellows and Ian Lewis were all jailed for four years in February 2012 after being convicted of conspiracy to steal, but are currently out on licence.

At a separate hearing on Friday, Geeling, Lewis and Fellows reportedly showed no emotion as the amounts they had to pay were read out by His Honour Judge Martin Walsh, who used the Proceeds of Crime Act to dish out the payment orders.

He said: “Each defendant has available assets in excess of £40,000, a figure near to this was canvassed the last time, but further negotiation has settled the final benefit.

“Most of it comes from equity in their homes.”

He said the total cost of the trial was £216,000, including £86,000 costs for counsel.