Thieves Stole $5M in Food by Posing as Truckers

The Paperwork Looked Real. The Trucks Were Not.

When a driver pulled up to a New Jersey logistics center in November 2025 and presented credentials for a carrier called Z Mile Inc., nobody at the facility had a reason to be suspicious. The paperwork matched. The truck was there. The driver loaded 43,100 pounds of frozen lamb and left.

The lamb was supposed to go to Minnesota and Wyoming. Instead, according to Manhattan prosecutors, it went to the Bronx.

How the Ring Worked

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the indictment of eight men on June 3, charging them with running a coordinated cargo theft ring that operated from October 2025 through April 2026. According to court documents, the operation had two layers working together.

First, hackers infiltrated the computer systems of freight brokers and shipping companies, stealing the login credentials and winning bids that legitimate carriers had secured for specific shipments. With that data in hand, the defendants allegedly leased semi-trucks, affixed the names and registration numbers of the real carriers, and simply drove to the logistics facilities to pick up loads that were never theirs to take.

The stolen goods were then routed to the Bronx and sold on the black market, prosecutors said.

What Was Taken

Six thefts were identified in the indictment. Across those incidents, the ring allegedly stole approximately $165,000 worth of lamb, $432,000 in cheese, $295,000 in beef, more than $266,000 in copper rod, and more than $3.3 million in cigarettes - for a total of nearly $5 million in goods destined for businesses and consumers across multiple states.

In one incident from February 2026, court documents allege a defendant drove a truck impersonating Viking Transport to a Newark facility, loaded 43,100 pounds of copper rod, and drove it back through Manhattan before most of it was sold at a Brooklyn scrap yard.

In two separate incidents in March 2026, drivers allegedly impersonated a carrier called Preston Deliveries to collect over $3.3 million in cigarettes from a Virginia facility. Those cigarettes were intended for Tennessee and Florida.

The Human Cost Beyond the Numbers

Port Authority Chief Security Officer Greg Ehrie described the conspiracy as one that ‘used hacked data to impersonate shipping companies and intercept cargo’ in a way that required serious coordination to dismantle.

District Attorney Bragg said the investigation revealed the defendants were also interacting with other criminal syndicates connected to the hacking operations - and that his office has ‘reason to believe there are other incidents of this alleged conduct’ beyond the six identified in the indictment.

The losses do not stay inside the supply chain. Cargo theft at this scale drives up costs for retailers, insurers, and ultimately consumers. According to the American Transportation Research Institute, cargo theft costs the freight industry an estimated $18 million every single day in the United States.

Who Was Charged

The eight defendants - Murodullo Khasanov, Nodir Kobilov, Shavkatbek Mamadjanov, Rakhmiddin Abdullaev, Aleksey Vorobyev, Nizom Ismoilov, Doston Mardoev, and Dilshod Nabiev - each face one count of conspiracy in the fourth degree and varying counts of grand larceny. Additional charges include criminal possession of stolen property.

The charges in the indictment are allegations. All defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The investigation involved the NYPD, the FBI’s New York Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and several other federal and state partners. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said the investigation remains ongoing.

What This Means for the Food Supply

Cargo theft is no longer a phenomenon limited to smash-and-grab store robberies. The scheme described in this indictment reads less like a heist and more like a corporate fraud operation - one that relied on insider access to logistics data, coordinated trucking, storage networks, and a ready market for stolen goods.

The FBI has documented a surge in ‘fictitious pickup’ fraud, where criminals use fraudulently obtained carrier credentials to intercept shipments. The National Insurance Crime Bureau estimates only about 1 in 10 theft attempts leads to an arrest, meaning the cases that reach indictment represent a fraction of the broader problem.

For the businesses, workers, and consumers whose goods never arrived, there are rarely easy answers - and often no recovery at all.

References: Eight indicted for impersonating shipping carriers in multi-state retail theft ring | Eight indicted in alleged carrier impersonation scheme