The Federal Bureau of Investigation has charged a New York-based truck driver of “conspiring to infiltrate email accounts of legitimate truck-load carriers” and “using the hacked accounts to book cargo with shippers and selling the items for illicit profit.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts in a release said Romoy Forbes, 31, a Jamaican national living in Deer Park, N.Y., had stolen hundreds of thousands in frozen seafood, fruit, and designer cologne.
FBI charging documents tell a familiar tale: Allegations of criminals hacking motor carrier emails, booking freight, and then running off with the high-value loads.
[Related: ITS Logistics skimps carrier almost $40K after falling for cargo theft scam]
On July 15, a shipper put a load of about 33,750 pounds of frozen snow crabs worth approximately $325,000 on a load board, according to the documents. The load was headed from Worcester, Massachusetts, to Jacksonville, Florida, and the hacker, a co-conspirator of Forbes, had gained access to a real fleet’s email address.
Forbes drove his truck into the facility, and when the shipper asked for a picture of the truck he’d use to haul the product, he sent pictures of the legitimate carrier's truck, not his own, the FBI alleged.
"Carrier name if they ask?" Forbes allegedly texted a co-conspirator, who then sent him fake pictures of the real carrier's truck, according to the FBI. FBI
The shipper even set up tracking for the load via a phone that Forbes carried, but by July 16, the tracking had gone cold, and the load ended up at a warehouse in Queens, New York, charging documents note.
The shipper got the runaround on the phone, eventually telling someone in Forbes’ network that they’d contact the police, only to hear back “f*** the police,” according to the documents.
The documents allege two similar incidents with loads of blueberries and cologne, down to Forbes giving the same phone numbers, driving the same trucks. The FBI showed surveillance camera images of Forbes in multiple locations making pickups.
Forbes had a contact saved in his phone as “my customer for everything,” with whom he coordinated to drop off the cargo, FBI evidence stated.
FBI recommended charging Forbes with violations of federal criminal law including 18 U.S.C. 371 (conspiracy) and 2314 (governing the interstate transportation of stolen goods).
The charges against Forbes are part of what authorities are calling "Operation Take Back America," which the attorney's office described as “a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.”
The FBI charges represent something of a rarity, as cargo theft, though common, doesn't often get prosecuted at the federal level.
Recently industry voices have backed the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which would establish uniform reporting codes and a federal task force fighting cargo theft, among other things.
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