Texas entrepreneur gets 10 years and $87 million judgment over RIN fraud

In Texas, an entrepreneur who only produced a few vats of biofuel was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and $87 million in restitution for 68 counts of false statements to the EPA and mail fraud RIN fraud. He pleaded guilty in June 2015 when his sentence was expected to be up to 10 years in prison and about $51 million in restitution. In the plea agreement, Rivkin admitted that from July 2010 to July 2011, he devised the biodiesel fraud scheme as his business operation falsely generated renewable fuel credits, known as renewable identification numbers (RINs), and sold them to oil companies and brokers for more than $29 million.