Long-Haul Crime Log

Inside the hunt for the masterminds of a double-brokering scheme

July 16, 2021 13:00 - 27 minutes

Hundreds of trucking companies have been allegedly defrauded in an elaborate scheme utilizing a controversial practice called double-brokering. After months of investigating, co-host Clarissa Hawes got a tip that led to a series of bizarre phone calls with the man who owned a freight brokerage at the center of the operation. He told her: “You've got a lot of angry people … trying to find out who is trying to find them, who is trying to hurt their kids, their families.” Our latest episode wad...

Drugs at the Border: What truckers, fleets need to know

June 09, 2021 17:35 - 19 minutes

Seizures of drugs from tractor-trailers are a regular occurrence at the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada. Lawyer Su Ross, a partner with MSK in Los Angeles who specializes in compliance issues, says the drivers caught with these illicit loads are often unaware of what they were hauling. Ross talks with Long-Haul Crime Log co-host Nate Tabak during the FreightWaves Small Fleet and Owner-Operator summit. Follow LHCL on Apple Podcasts Follow LHCL on Spotify More FreightWaves Podcasts Learn m...

Pilot fuel rebate scandal spurs unusual legal fight over racism

June 07, 2021 14:58 - 10 minutes

In April 2013, agents from the FBI and IRS raided the Knoxville headquarters of the largest truck stop chain in the United States: Pilot Flying J. It was part of a massive investigation into a fuel rebate scam. In all, fourteen former Pilot employees pleaded guilty for their roles in what was known as “jacking the discount.” But eight years later, the story is far from over as the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns the convictions of former Pilot president Mark Hazelwood and two of his ...

Inside the fight against drugs at the U.S.-Mexico border

May 14, 2021 19:55 - 9 minutes

Co-host and reporter Noi Mahoney recently spent some time with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel in the U.S.-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas. Officially, he was there to report on legal produce imports from Mexico. But he learned some things about the massive shipments of illegal drugs that CBP intercepts from trucks on a regular basis. In the latest episode, Mahoney explains what he found about drug smuggling during his Laredo trip, and why the illicit shipments have increased...

A curious pot bust jams up 2 Canadian truckers in North Dakota

May 04, 2021 15:30 - 8 minutes

Two Canadian truck drivers in their 20s are facing charges in North Dakota over a $4.5 million load of marijuana intercepted at the U.S. border. Co-host and producer Nate Tabak explains why he’s looking into the case – which has some unusual aspects. The drivers were arrested on April 23 after U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers discovered the marijuana while inspecting what was supposed to be a load of straw at the U.S-Canada border in Pembina, North Dakota. In an unusual turn for a ...

Why were truckers in kidnapping cases able to go free so easily?

April 16, 2021 13:07 - 28 minutes

It’s a troubling case: Two truck drivers accused of kidnapping women and then forcing them into prostitution or holding them for ransom. Yet somehow, Brian T. Summerson, 25, and Pierre Washington, 35, were able to secure their freedom relatively easily during two points of the investigation by the FBI. In the latest episode of FreightWaves’ true-crime podcast, Long-Haul Crime Log, co-host and investigative reporter Clarissa Hawes looks into the case and the uncomfortable questions that the ...

Crimes against the U.S. trucking industry (It’s cabotage!)

April 05, 2021 21:30 - 20 minutes

In 2017, a group of trucking and logistics company owners met in Nogales, Arizona. They were worried because federal authorities had begun enforcing regulations that bar Mexican truck drivers with B-1 visas from hauling cargo within the U.S. “Long story short, if we don’t fix this soon, 100 companies will close,” Jimmy Watson Jr. told Nogales International newspaper. The next year his father was arrested and charged with illegally employing drivers from Mexico. This week’s episode of Long-Ha...

Trafficked into trucking

March 24, 2021 22:30 - 37 minutes

They came to the United States from Eastern Europe with the promise of earning good money working in the trucking industry. Instead, these truckers found themselves trapped in an alleged immigration scheme hauling cars across the U.S. seven days a week, sometimes driving up to 20 hours a day – with getting paid a fraction of what they were owed. This week’s episode of Long-Haul Crime Log investigates allegations from drivers who say they were lured from Eastern Europe to what they thought ...

A freight broker foils a cargo theft

March 12, 2021 16:20 - 47 minutes

Grace Sharkey was working as a freight broker in 2018, when she had found a truck to haul a $60,000 load of tires from Los Angeles to Alaska. But something strange happened after the cargo got picked up. The driver started going to the opposite corner of the country – to Miami. Someone was trying to steal the load, and Sharkey was determined to stop it. This week’s episode tells the story of how Sharkey and her colleagues foiled the cargo theft. We explore how the crime itself happened nowher...

Cocaine cornflakes shipment no match for a dog named Bico

March 02, 2021 16:05 - 12 minutes

On Feb. 13, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Cincinnati were checking a shipment of corn flakes from Peru, when suddenly Bico, a narcotics K-9, alerted agents that something was amiss. The corn flakes were frosted with something else besides sugar – they were coated with cocaine. In all, agents would find about 44 pounds of cocaine-coated corn flakes, worth about $2.8 million. Long-Haul Crime Log tells the story of how the cocaine ‘frosted’ corn flakes were shipped from Peru, en ...

When cybercriminals try to shake down a small trucking company

February 22, 2021 21:14 - 24 minutes

George, the manager of a small U.S. trucking company, was alerted around 6 a.m. on a recent Monday that an employee was having computer problems. So George investigated. At first he thought it was a garden variety computer virus. But this was no ordinary virus.The anti-virus software was disabled, and all of the files were encrypted. The same had happened to all the other computers left on over the weekend, as well as the server. The hackers left notes in text files to begin the process of a...

Deadly truck crashes expose electronic log fraud

February 13, 2021 22:09 - 35 minutes

On April 19, 2019, a truck driver sent a text message to his boss, Damir Sisic, owner of Sisic Transport Services (STS). He had less than two hours left before his legal driving time was up under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Hours-of-Service rule, but he needed to keep driving in order to deliver his load on time. “Please don’t forget to fix my logs,” the driver wrote. So Sisic, who owned the trucking company, took care of it. He altered the driver’s electronic log, some...

A rookie trucker goes free after drug bust

February 05, 2021 22:02 - 23 minutes

Things looked bad for rookie trucker Varinder Singh at the U.S.-Canada border in November after U.S. border officers in Detroit found nearly $3 million worth of marijuana in his trailer. Singh told investigators that he knew nothing about the drugs. They didn’t believe him. So he was arrested and charged. But his lawyer believed him, and eventually so did U.S. prosecutors. On the next episode of Long-Haul Crime Log: we hear from the lawyer who cleared the driver’s name and secured his releas...

Mexican cartels cash in on coronavirus

January 29, 2021 18:34 - 17 minutes

In Mexico, criminal cartels have been busy exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic and medical supply chains to make money. In this episode of Long-Haul Crime Log, we look at how cartels are taking advantage of the medical crisis to pursue profits outside of the drug trade and cargo theft. Meanwhile, there are growing fears that the cartels will undermine the country’s vaccine rollout. We also delve into the story of a bookkeeper who defrauded a family-owned trucking company and farm in Missouri ou...

Team drivers taken hostage

January 20, 2021 21:47 - 15 minutes

On July 30, 2010, two team truck drivers pulled over their rig on a road in Arizona to change seats. They didn’t know about a nearby prison break. Soon they’d be at the mercy of two armed fugitives. On this episode of Long-Haul Crime Long, we tell the harrowing story of the Kingman Arizona State Prison break and the truckers who became hostages. Plus, the deadly business of fuel smuggling in Mexico. Read the headlines at FreightWaves.com Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify More F...

The killers of truckers

January 13, 2021 14:00 - 22 minutes

Long-Haul Crime Log, presented by FreightWaves, covers crime in trucking and supply chain. Take a trip to the dark side of the freight world with journalists Clarissa Hawes, Nate Tabak and Noi Mahoney. On today’s episode, the chilling story of the Turnpike Phantom, the killer who preyed on sleeping truckers almost 70 years ago. Hawes explains why the unsolved killing of a trucker in Detroit still haunts her. Plus, the latest crime headlines - and why train robberies are still a thing Mexico....

A trucker's execution

January 12, 2021 22:27 - 28 minutes