DOJ charges Armenian crime ring in Amazon theft price over $83 million

Department of Justice officials on Tuesday charged members or associates of an Armenian organized crime ring with stealing greater than $83 million price of cargo from Amazon by posing as legitimate truck drivers and siphoning off goods destined for the corporate’s warehouses.

Since a minimum of 2021, a minimum of 4 people linked to the crime ring carried out a scheme across California to steal truckloads of merchandise, starting from smart TVs and GE icemakers to SharkNinja vacuums and air fryers, the DOJ alleged.

“At present, Amazon is tormented by recurring thefts of its shipments, which is often known as ‘cargo theft,'” the criticism says.

Amazon has ramped up its efforts to trace and shut down fraudulent, deceptive and illegal activities on its sprawling online store. Eliminating stolen goods is especially difficult. CNBC reported in 2023 that Amazon suspended dozens of third-party merchants it alleged were selling stolen goods, though a lot of those sellers claimed they were unknowingly caught within the scheme, putting their businesses liable to survival.

Amazon is not the only retailer afflicted by cargo theft. Experts told CNBC cargo theft-related losses are estimated at near $1 billion or more a 12 months.

In its criticism, the DOJ said the alleged fraudsters operated 4 transport carriers — AK Transportation, NBA Holdings, Belman Transport and Markos Transportation — that may obtain contracted freight routes from Amazon Relay, an application utilized by truckers to acquire work, also known as loads.

Each trucker is assigned a load for pickup from a manufacturer’s warehouse to be dropped off at an Amazon facility. As a substitute, the groups would divert from their designated routes, take a portion of the products off the trucks and resell them or gift them to associates, prosecutors allege.

In some cases, the “self-styled carriers” would complete their deliveries at an Amazon warehouse several days after they were expected to point out up, in keeping with the criticism.

DOJ officials seized the alleged fraudsters’ iPhones and located photos and videos of warehouses lined with boxes of crockpots, Keurig coffee machines, keratin shampoo, Weber grills and other goods.

Amazon teams cooperated with DOJ officials of their investigation, including sharing information in regards to the stolen goods, and details of the alleged fraudsters’ accounts on its online marketplace.

Representatives from Amazon didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

DOJ officials linked the defendants to a litany of other alleged crimes, including attempted murder, kidnapping, illegal firearm possession and health-care fraud. Several of the 13 defendants are expected to seem in a Los Angeles district court on Tuesday and Wednesday, while one in every of the defendants appeared in a court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Tuesday and was detained.

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