Photo of oil trucks via Flickr user Ray Forster
Read: Drug Dealers and Users Just Got Swindled Out of $12 Million by the Internet's Biggest Illegal MarketplaceAfter two years of working informants, recording on wiretaps, and conducting old-school surveillance, New York City authorities dropped 11 indictments on nine Brooklyn and Bronx fuel oil companies Tuesday, charging them with scheming to defraud and racketeering. 44 people were arrested, and more charges are expected in what's believed to be a decades-long con, as the New York Times reports.Low-level employees like truck-drivers and management alike are accused of shortchanging customers—citizens and official organizations like police precincts and Rikers Island—up to 10 percent of the oil they thought they were getting, costing them $18 million per year.A source told DNAInfo on Tuesday that the companies' primary scheme was "overcharging by the millions" and that "they were practically manufacturing money" last winter, due to the extreme cold.As if living in New York weren't humiliatingly expensive enough already.