Trucking news and briefs for Monday, April 27, 2026:
- Have you seen this trucker? FBI wants to hear from you.
- Ponzi scheme lands “trucking company owner” in prison.
- What are your operational costs? ATRI extends deadline.
- More safety features coming to 2027 Freightliner Cascadias.
FBI asking for help in locating missing driver
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Tampa, Florida, asked for the public’s help in locating Alejandro Jacomino Gonzalez, last seen on April 17 at the Brevard County Rest Area on I-95 south in Grant-Valkaria. FBI Tampa said Gonzalez disappeared while transporting vehicles from the Port of Brunswick, Georgia, to Miami. The truck and some of the cars have been recovered, but Gonzalez is still missing.
At approximately 1:21 a.m. on April 17, Gonzalez arrived at a truck stop in Brevard County, Florida, where he rested for several hours. At 7:49 a.m., GPS from the truck driven by Gonzalez indicates it traveled South one exit and then turned North toward Jacksonville, Florida. Soon after, Gonzalez became unreachable and the truck was reported missing.
Later on April 17, the truck was located in Port Wentworth, Georgia, yet Gonzalez was not in the truck. Additionally, several vehicles were missing from the hauler. Since the discovery, three vehicles have been located in Florida. Others are still missing, along with Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, 41, is described as bald with a brown beard and mustache, a full sleeve tattoo on his left arm, a tattoo on his lower right arm, and a tattoo of the word "Elisia" on his right forearm. He is listed as 5’11” and 200 pounds.
The public is encouraged to share any videos or photographs taken in the early morning hours on April 17 at the Brevard County Rest Area in Grant-Valkaria, Florida, to www.fbi.gov/brevardhijacking. Anyone with information can also call 1-800-CALL FBI or submit tips to tips.fbi.gov.
Fraudster gets prison time, huge fines for trucking-related Ponzi scheme
A New Jersey man has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for perpetrating a trucking-related Ponzi scheme.
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, announced that Arsen Lusher was sentenced to prison for the scheme that defrauded more than 20 investors of nearly $9 million. On Aug. 18, 2025, Lusher pled guilty to one count of wire fraud.
In addition to the prison term, Lusher, 49, of Millstone, New Jersey, was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $8,740,440 in forfeiture and $8,740,440 in restitution.
“Today’s 42-month sentence comes at the end of a too-common story: a fast-talking fraudster promising exceptional returns but not giving investors basic information,” Clayton said. “Arsen Lusher lied to victims about the nature of his business to line his own pockets. When the walls came closing in, Lusher doubled down, creating false documents to try to lull his victims into a false sense of security about their investments. Lusher’s fraud was brazen, and it cost his victims nearly $9 million. A good rule of thumb for investors: no audit, no investment.”
According to the charging documents and other filings and statements made in court, from at least 2017 through at least February 2021, Lusher engaged in a scheme in which he and his associates solicited investments from victims, usually by representing that they had a profitable trucking business that enjoyed delivery and installation contracts with multiple large retailers.
Lusher and his associates typically represented that the victims’ investments would fund the purchase of trucks and guaranteed the victims high rates of return over a fixed period -- typically between 30 and 40 percent over one or two years. In that way, he succeeded in raising more than $40 million from his victims during the scheme.
Lusher, however, did not have a large trucking business, and he did not invest the victims’ money into any trucking business. Instead, he paid earlier victims with later victims’ funds, sustaining the scheme for years.
While he was stealing money from the victims, the defendant lived a lavish life, the U.S. Attorney’s office said -- gambling “millions of dollars at casinos and online, winning as much as $100,000 in a single sitting. The defendant also used funds from his companies’ corporate bank accounts to finance personal expenses, taking a trip to China in 2019 that included a “high-end shopping spree," and more.
During the scheme, neither Lusher in his personal capacity nor any of the companies that the defendant used to perpetrate the scheme filed federal tax returns.
After years of fraud, in late 2020 and early 2021, the scheme collapsed, leaving the victims with losses of at least $8,740,440. As the scheme came crashing down, Lusher created numerous false documents and shared them with his victims for the purpose of continuing to solicit investments and lulling victims into a false sense of security with respect to their investments.
[Related: Former fleet owner at head of trucking Ponzi scheme to pay $51 million in restitution]
ATRI extends deadline for carriers to participate in Ops Costs survey
The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) has extended the deadline for motor carriers to participate in its annual Operational Costs of Trucking report. For-hire motor carriers can now submit data through Friday, May 15.
Data can be submitted online or by PDF: both forms are available on ATRI’s website, along with a sample customized report and other helpful information for participants. All confidential data is protected and published only in anonymized averages; NDAs can be signed by request.
ATRI’s Operational Costs of Trucking report is trusted by thousands of industry decisionmakers every year as a key barometer of freight market conditions and is the leading public benchmarking tool for motor carriers of all sectors, from owner-operators to 10,000+ truck fleets.
The report tracks cost metrics such as driver pay, equipment expenditures, and insurance premiums, as well as key performance indicators such as non-revenue mileage, driver utilization, mileage between breakdowns, and revenue per truck per week.
All participating motor carriers receive a customized report that compares their costs and operations to an anonymized peer group of the same sector and size. New in 2026, customized reports for multi-year participants will also include year-over-year comparisons to more directly evaluate trends over time.
[Related: Overdrive's Load Profit Analyzer: How to use to assess rates, costs]
Freightliner, Detroit expand Assurance safety-assist features
Freightliner and Detroit have announced new advanced safety capabilities for the Detroit Assurance Suite of Safety Systems.
Standard for the Freightliner Cascadia, Detroit Assurance with Active Break Assist 6 (ABA6) builds on its existing offering with the introduction of Cross Traffic Assist and Active Side Guard Assist 2 with left turn protection for Cascadias built beginning in 2027.
“Safety at Freightliner has consistently been shaped by customer needs, and by embracing a holistic, long-term perspective,” said Joanna Buttler, general manager, product strategy and market development, Daimler Truck North America. “Each enhancement to the Detroit Assurance Suite of Safety Systems reflects careful decisions about where added capability can make a meaningful difference for fleets and drivers. The latest ABA 6 features extend that approach, strengthening active safety while aligning with how commercial vehicle operation is expected to evolve over time.”
Intersections and turning maneuvers consistently rank among the most complex and high-risk situations for commercial vehicles, making them an important focus area for the latest ABA 6 feature enhancements, Freightliner noted.
Cross Traffic Assist is designed to help detect vehicles crossing the truck’s forward path at intersections -- an operating environment where visibility and reaction time can be limited. Using radar inputs to monitor cross traffic movement, the system can provide visual and audible warnings when a potential collision risk is identified and, when conditions warrant and within defined system limits, support the response with partial or full braking to help mitigate or reduce the severity of a collision.
[Related: Old-school ways with new-school tools: Back to efficiency basics with advanced safety sytems]
Active Side Guard Assist 2 with left turn protection expands Freightliner’s sideguard functionality beyond right-hand braking on pedestrians and cyclists to address the added complexity of left turns, particularly in environments where traffic patterns and closing speeds can change quickly. When the left turn signal is engaged, the system is designed to monitor the vehicle’s intended path for oncoming traffic that could intersect. If a potential hazard is detected, the system can issue visual and audible alerts and, in some cases, apply partial or full braking before the vehicle enters the collision zone.
ABA 6 is designed to address an expanded set of collision scenarios, including visible vehicles in curves, vehicles in adjacent lanes, stationary offset vehicles commonly present following roadway incidents, and moving or stationary pedestrians and bicyclists.
Orders for Detroit Assurance with Active Brake Assist 6, including Cross Traffic Assist and Active Side Guard Assist 2, are expected to open in the third quarter of 2026, with production beginning in January 2027.
[Related: Detroit readies rollout of new 2027 engines]
