Fraud

A growing number of False Claims Act cases are exposing schemes designed to evade duties on imports.

First Brands, Perfectus, Canadian steel firms and Greenbrier are among recent targets in federal duty evasion actions

Banks learned years ago that fraud prevention requires more than instinct or technology alone. They built compliance roles, documented procedures, and repeatable verification processes designed to reduce risk and stand up in court. FreightWaves believes the transportation industry is now entering that same shift.

Authorities in Florida arrested 14 suspects tied to what investigators describe as a highly organized theft network responsible for millions in stolen merchandise. Detectives say the group operated across multiple states while using logistics, resale operations, and coordinated theft methods that resembled a structured criminal enterprise more than isolated retail theft.

Dale Prax makes the case for cross-platform collaboration on freight fraud — and explains why the industry can’t afford to keep working in silos.

FMCSA revoked two more electronic logging devices today, bringing the total to 67 noncompliant devices removed since January 2025. Carriers using Safe ELD or MYLOGS ELD have until July 7, 2026, to replace them or face out-of-service orders.

An investigation found 195 active motor carriers clustered along a few miles of East Dublin Granville Road in northeast Columbus; the same corridor was just exposed for a billion dollars in Medicaid fraud. Federal inspection data shows those carriers have been involved in 275 crashes, including 4 fatal and 74 injury crashes. The world’s largest retailer appears in 175 inspections across 44 of those carriers with a 20.6% out-of-service rate.

Most cargo theft does not start with a truck. It starts with access that looks legitimate until it is too late.

Discover how a $287K VIN fraud scheme exploited the trucking industry using false identities.

Rob Carpenter breaks down what it was like working with 60 Minutes on their explosive segment about chameleon carriers and the Super Ego network.

This was not stopped by a process. It was caught by chance.

Stolen freight worth $1M recovered by deputies, preventing major cargo theft loss.

Owners of two trucking companies and two U.S. Postal Service employees were sentenced to prison for a bribery scheme aimed at securing transportation contracts.

Two trucks carrying $470K in stolen vehicles were intercepted, but the real risk is how they moved through legitimate freight channels undetected.

Fraud is no longer obvious. It hides inside companies that look legitimate but have not been verified.

By the time the product was found, it was already positioned to move through resale channels. That’s not a recovery story. It’s a reminder that most losses start long before a load is ever picked up.

From the US to the UK to Europe, the pattern is the same. Control shifts early, and by the time it’s noticed, the freight is already gone.

More than 400,000 KitKats were stolen in transit, but the product itself is still traceable. Nestlé’s response shows how even a chocolate bar can carry the signal after the load is gone.

Cargo theft persists even with all checks passed, revealing gaps in freight verification.

Danielle Spinelli’s CHP ride-along exposed massive organized rail cargo theft in the Mojave Desert. Broken seals and empty boxes litter the tracks as theft rings use slow trains, shoelace markers and on-site pallet breaking to steal millions.

The owner of an Amazon delivery service provider was recently convicted of defrauding the retailer of nearly $10 million.

Join us on May 20 in Cleveland.

Discover the MC number market and learn about the FMCSA’s efforts to curb illegal trades in this underground industry.

Sanjay Singh founded Royal Bengal Logistics, Inc. in 2018 in Coral Springs, Florida. He built a website that described a company with 250 employees, a fleet of over 200 semi-trucks and growing, and revenue of $1 million per month. He held annual investor banquets in hotel ballrooms. He posted a video of himself onstage announcing […]

Discover emerging identity verification gaps in military logistics and their national security implications.

Explore freight fraud tactics as stolen loads and identity scams plague logistics, evolving with new threats.

A Russian-run crime group compromised more than 1,600 freight credentials across North America and Europe, a report says.

Next-generation cargo theft often looks legitimate right up until the freight is gone.

The Entry-Level Driver Training regulations took effect in February 2022 after years of development and industry lobbying. The result was a federal training standard that requires no minimum hours of instruction, relies on self-certification at every checkpoint, and leaves every meaningful decision about actual driver competency to the fifty states, each operating in fifty different ways. The fraud factories did not slow down.

Executive orders, rulemakings, legislation, and court challenges all operate on different timelines with different powers and different guardrails. Yesterday’s historic Duffy-Barrs press conference was the biggest enforcement announcement in a generation, and it still has to survive the process. Here’s why, and what comes next.

On Tuesday afternoon, a 30-year-old truck driver from Philadelphia named Bekzhan Beishekeev failed to stop for slowed traffic on State Road 67 in Jay County, Indiana. He swerved into oncoming traffic and killed four Amish men from the Bryant community: Henry Eicher, 58, his sons Menno, 33, and Paul, 31, and Simon Schwartz, 22.

GenLogs provides a visual, objective source of truth. You can put your eyes on what a carrier is actually doing: where they’ve been, when they last hauled freight, whether they ever hauled freight, and for whom. Instead of asking carriers what they claim to do, GenLogs shows you what they actually do.

FreightWaves’ Thomas sits down with Jeff Starr, senior vice president of marketplace solutions at Echo Global Logistics, to talk about trends in freight fraud and what Echo does to stay ahead of bad actors.

The American Trucking Associations warned Congress that safety is being compromised within the defense department through the use of unauthorized motor carriers.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is seeking public comment on renewing its commercial motor vehicle marking requirements. While the FMCSA documents over 153,000 marking violations in 2024 alone, an underground economy of swapped placards helps chameleon carriers and Carrier Identity thieves stay one step ahead of investigators.

The freight industry moved $14 trillion in goods last year. It cannot function without trust, trust that the carrier picking up your load is who they claim to be, trust that the broker paying you will actually pay, and trust that the load you accepted exists. That trust has been systematically exploited for decades. At its root, every form of freight fraud, chameleon carriers, double brokering, cargo theft, identity spoofing, comes down to one question: Are you who you say you are?

Regional airline Air Cargo Carriers has paid a settlement to resolve charges it defrauded the U.S. Postal Service by fudging time stamps to hide late deliveries.

A family-owned San Francisco tile business was defrauded of nearly $200,000 in merchandise when criminals used fake credentials to orchestrate a strategic cargo theft.

Small fleet owner Steve Troyer says non-domiciled CDL drivers and weak enforcement are undercutting compliant carriers.

When a November 2025 draft memo from the Department of Transportation surfaced promising a groundbreaking “data-driven severity matrix” to catch chameleon carriers, it raised uncomfortable questions about ARCHI (Application Review and Chameleon Investigation), built with $3.5 million in congressional funding in 2012-2013. Is this bureaucratic amnesia, rebranding of an underperforming system, or evidence that FMCSA’s chameleon detection infrastructure has been quietly abandoned?

Trucking executives say surging transient foreign labor, fraudulent CDLs and lax oversight have been undercutting legitimate U.S. carriers.

Manipulation of electronic logging devices is creating a two-tier trucking market — where some carriers follow hours-of-service rules and others bypass them to run nearly double the miles per week, experts said.

Industry economist projects that 600,000 active drivers could be eliminated from trucking Update 5:30 pm ET: FreightWaves received clarifying comment from Highway on the state of their system. A Highway representative said, “the Highway system is not static. It is an adaptive system. Fraudsters can’t “reverse engineer” what changes continuously based on new patterns, behavioral […]

The dual pressure of shrinking margins and escalating fraud has prompted brokers to take a hard look at their day-to-day workflows. There are unfortunately plenty of weak points that could be costing many brokers money and exposing them to risk. One area that often flies under the radar: the inbox.

Highway fraud prevention tools integrate into AscendTMS for SMBs, boosting security and enhancing protection.

Enhance carrier vetting and onboarding with MyCarrier Portal’s integration for improved safety and fraud prevention.

Allianz Commercial’s annual Safety and Shipping Review has found that cargo theft is increasing in frequency, scope, and sophistication.

FreightWaves’ Thomas Wasson speaks to Todd Waldron, Truckstop.com’s VP of Carrier Experience, about the state of the industry and driver sentiment on technology adoption. As Truckstop.com celebrates its thirtieth anniversary, Waldron reflects on the hurdles of change and his hopes for more collaboration with other industry players in the future.

The Freight Fraud Crisis The trucking industry is grappling with a surge in freight fraud, leaving carriers, brokers, and shippers vulnerable to sophisticated scams like identity theft and unauthorized double brokering. These schemes disrupt supply chains, undermine trust, and cause significant financial and logistical challenges. The root cause is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s […]

Eliminating fuel fraud with unique QR codes and flexible business rules.

Grand jury indicts seven men on charges they targeted trucks for robberies.

Freight fraud has emerged as one of the most rapidly growing and financially devastating risks in today’s global supply chain landscape. With global cargo theft losses exceeding $80 billion in 2023 and the average cost of a successful fictitious pickup surging to $365,000 per incident in Q1 2024, the industry has been desperately seeking more […]

Echo Global Logistics has emerged as a standout performer in the freight industry’s battle against fraud, earning recognition as a winner of the 2025 FreightWaves Fraud Fighter Awards. With an impressive record of delivering over one million truckload shipments in 2024 while maintaining a loss rate of less than 0.01% due to theft, Echo has […]

Descartes’ MyCarrierPortal leverages real-time Incident Reports to continually vet your network.

Eight people have been arrested in Florida in connection to selling thousands of fraudulent driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.

Crowley was one of 10 winners of the 2025 Fraud Fighters Award.

With the rise of fuel fraud and increasingly complex fuel tax regulations, QuikQ’s fuel payment instruments utilize technology to track and prevent discrepancies at the pump.

Nikola Founder Trevor Milton releases documentary aiming to set the story straight about his fall from leadership.

Freight fraud and cargo theft have reached crisis levels, but recent FMCSA identity verification measures are chipping away at fraudulent registrations. Proactive enforcement and innovative tech solutions are starting to protect our supply chains.

The U.S. government says it moved to block a businessman and his two logistics companies from using fake postal labels to ship parcels from China to the United States.

Truckstop’s Taryn Daker shares the company’s latest freight fraud data and shares tips on prevention.

In this edition: The Trellix cyberreport, and DAT gets a makeover

Polar Air Cargo is gone, but another person involved in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the company years ago just got sentenced to two years in prison.

This week: We examine freight fraud stats and close the case on some stolen vehicles.

Broker Landstar System has delayed its first-quarter report as it further investigates what it says was fraud tied to an independent agent working under its freight forwarding operation.

Importers bringing goods into the U.S. were improperly declaring imports that racked up $310 million in fees.

Importers, customs brokers and freight carriers could be exposed to higher fraud risks as a result of Trump’s rapid-fire, unpredictable tariff regime.

Freight fraud is on the rise—and it’s costing brokers, 3PLs, and shippers millions. This free playbook breaks down how industry leaders are using real-time visibility and AI to expose fraud schemes before they impact operations. From onboarding to final delivery, learn how to identify suspicious patterns, validate carrier identity, and take action in real time. […]

Fraud Watch examines potential increases in customs fraud whistleblowers.

Investors have responded to the revelation, disclosed in a late Wednesday 8-K filing, with Landstar’s stock taking a hit over the past 24 hours.

Join us for a one-day Freight Fraud Symposium in Dallas, Texas, on May 14, 2025.

Fraud remains one of the biggest threats to the freight industry, with bad actors constantly adapting their tactics. Lisa Haubenstock, VP of product at Truckstop, dives into the issue and the strategies companies can leverage to stay ahead.

This week: We get an update on Kal Freight’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Federal investigators accuse nine logistics workers and executives of devising an elaborate scheme to slip $200 million worth of counterfeit goods from China past customs officials at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

From optimizing electric vehicle fleets to mitigating fraud and automating nonrevenue tasks, automation is positioned to address some of the industry’s most pressing challenges.

In late 2024, retail giant Macy’s revealed a shocking accounting scandal involving its parcel delivery expenses. It said a single employee had managed to hide approximately $151 million in delivery costs over nearly three years, causing significant disruption to the company’s financial reporting and raising questions about its internal controls.

Logistics firm Freight Essentials filed a federal lawsuit against WWEX Group and its affiliates, alleging that the company is engaging in fraudulent business practices with hidden fees.

This week: Blue Yonder deals with a massive cyberattack and FreightWaves’ shares tips for dealing with porch pirates.

Recent headlines reveal how freight fraud is no respecter of national borders. Authorities have arrested Shenghua Wen, a Chinese national residing illegally in the U.S., on suspicion of exporting firearms, ammunition and restricted military technology to North Korea. Operating out of Long Beach, California, Wen reportedly hid the contraband in shipping containers routed through Hong […]

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Fraud Watch, FreightWaves’ dedicated newsletter tackling the burgeoning crisis of freight fraud.

Strategic theft and straight theft are particularly prevalent in today’s market.

According to a new report by Becker Logistics, cargo theft varies seasonally and by mode and location.

The first-ever Freight Fraud Awareness Day, taking place on Tuesday, aims to unite the supply chain community in tackling schemes like double brokering and cargo theft, which have seen a 400% rise since 2022.

With scammers getting more sophisticated in compromising the security of cargo or a carrier’s sensitive information, brokers need access to the best technology available to help them efficiently deploy best-practice processes in their fight against fraud.

As cybercriminals evolve, companies must adopt cutting-edge defense strategies to protect their operations from significant financial and reputational damage.

Another executive at Polar Air Cargo has been sentenced to prison for defrauding the company for more than a decade.

Descartes recently acquired MyCarrierPortal to combine the strengths of both businesses, creating a more powerful solution for companies looking to boost efficiency while tackling fraud head-on.

A high-level executive at a prominent air cargo company was sentenced to prison for defrauding the company.

A Transportation Intermediaries Association report says the freight industry is “under siege” from fraud and must evolve to fight the ballooning problem.

U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce is spearheading an effort to have the Department of Homeland Security do more to combat organized retail crime in America.

Truckstop.com’s Brent Hutto discusses the company’s zero-tolerance policy toward fraud and its recent work with the FBI.

With fraud on the rise, verifying carriers has become one of the top ways shippers can fight fraud on the front lines.

Christopher Carroll, 54, of Farmington, Missouri, was found guilty by a federal jury for fraudulently obtaining nearly $3 million in Paycheck Protection Program funds.

A former executive at Polar Air Cargo received jail time as punishment for defrauding the company.

While the company continues to deny any wrongdoing, TuSimple has filed to settle its federal fraud case.

To view more FreightWaves infographics, click here

Corey Louis Hendrickson, 46, a former mayor of Willard, Missouri, and fleet dispatcher for Prime Inc., was sentenced to three years in federal prison for a scheme in which he used the names and Social Security numbers of drivers to steal money.

Two Midwest importers have settled a customs fraud case with the U.S. government for $10 million.

FreightTech hasn’t solved freight fraud, and regulators can’t figure out who is regulating it. Is there a solution?

Frances Hall has pleaded no contest to charges she was part of a multimillion dollar fraud scheme while she was co-owner of Bill Hall Jr. Trucking.