February 8, 2024
Introduction – Scams
Scams are everywhere, and so are people willing to engage in them. What is more surprising, however, is how so many of them remain ongoing for the amount of time that they do. People like Bernie Madoff, and Sam Bankman-Fried spearheaded extremely long-running financial fraud operations, and though they were all eventually caught, it is a wonder that their schemes lasted as long as they did. The same can be said about a scandal where a trucking company based in Salt Lake City, was uncovered to have been bribing FedEx employees, in a scam from 2009-2019.
The Scam
Executives of Salt Lake Trucking Group, Yevgeny Tuchinsky and Konstantin Tomilin have been convicted on conspiracy to commit wire fraud. During the aforementioned ten year period, the two men bribed various FedEx employees over $300k. The bribes were in exchange for inflated miles awarded to their own companies. They avoided scrutiny for such a significant period of time through shell companies, and obscuring information such as accident reports. The total amount of cash that was paid out by FedEx ended up at about $108 million. Tuchinsky and Tomilin profited around $7 million and $4 million respectively. This goes to show that there are always people out there who will attempt to be fraudulent. While they may not always face consequences, businesses and people must keep their eyes and ears open.
Works Cited: Salt Lake Trucking Group Guilty of $108M Fraud Against FedEx, Bribing Employees (thinkfreight.io)
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