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For 3 Years, Scammers Ran Truckless Trucking Company
mikesd81 writes "Wired reports Nicholas Lakes and Viachelav Berkovich are charged with computer fraud [PDF] for a man-in-the-middle attack that allegedly let them run a profitable trucking company without the hassle of driving a truck. For over three years the Russian immigrants hacked a Department of Transportation website called Safersys.org, which maintains a list of licensed interstate trucking companies and brokers. They then went on forums where brokers advertise cargo in need of transportation and negotiate a deal, for example, to transport cargo from American Canyon, California, to Jessup, Maryland, for $3,500. But instead of transporting the load, they would outsource the job to another trucking company posing as the legitimate company whose identity they'd hijacked. They would then invoice the company and take the money. When the company that owned the actual truck tried to contact the company that needed the goods delivered, they found they knew nothing about it. Over all they made nearly $500,000."
Sounds a bit like the music industry to me.
When the time comes for the artists to get paid...
1)Start trucking company
2)... 3)Profit!
So this is actually a valid business model?!?
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
The true middle man, Keyser Soze, gets off scot free.
I would like to subscribe to their newsletter; does anyone know their address?
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
The most environmentally friendly trucking company EVER.
What does yro mean? It has been driving me nuts...
Nice guys, they're very persuasive in person. Vitaly is loud, boisterous, always wants to have a good time. He wears fine suits and a lot of gold. Vlade is quieter, and he seems to have some sort of brooding intensity. He was always wearing track suits and listening to Run-DMC.
I honestly believed that these were best guys for transporting my adult novelties across state lines. This can be illegal in some jurisdictions (like Texas) and you need someone who knows how to run an illegal business. Since they are Russian, I knew they could handle it.
They kept telling me that the merchadise was seized at the Texas border by Davy Crockett and Ed Meese, and I believed them for a long time. Finally, after the 3rd shipment I started to suspect something. All of a sudden, the phone stopped ringing. Those Russians had played me for a fool!
That's when I knew I had to become a symbol. A creature of the night, to frighten away criminal scum like these Russians. I prayed to Jesus, and he transformed me into...the Bat-Man!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
In earlier years, this kind of fraud could have been executed over the telephone, or through the mail. Why does the medium that was used affect the specific criminal charge applied -- "computer fraud"? Just plain fraud would do nicely.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Apparently a 100% slice. That's the problem.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
No, if that's what they were doing they could have set up a legitimate business and possibly been successful.
They weren't "taking a slice off the top" - They were taking the whole pie, having the sub-contractors haul the loads they'd committed to, and then leaving the drivers uncompensated because they had in fact been hired by scammers rather than a legitimate contracting firm. Contacting the actual contracting firms did no good because they had no knowledge of the contract and the $$ had gone to the Russians.
I admit that the summary was a little hard to follow - I had to read it a couple of times too - TFA makes the situation much more clear.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
All that work by several people over three years to make $500K? There were apparently more people involved than the two indicted, and they had some operating costs. So they might have made $50K/year per participant, if they were lucky. And they had all the hassles of running a business. Even without the "going to jail" part, this was a lose.
They probably would have done better running a legit trucking brokerage, which they clearly knew how to do. They had to do all the selling and paperwork a real broker would do. Worse, their scam model didn't allow for much repeat business, so they had to keep hustling to find new customers.
This is just another example of how the FBI is failing the people of the USA. There is no way this should have taken 3 years to shut down.
It's not even an example where the FBI helped a company but would not help individuals. Most (if not all) of the victims were companies.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
That sounds like alot of work for 500,000 over 3 years.
Oh, I got that from the summary as well, my bad. Thanks for the clarification.
In that case I grudgingly admire nothing whatsoever about this =)
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
This has been going on for years.
I OWN a trucking company now, and have been dealing with assholes like this for years.
Whats becoming even MORE of a problem is the illegals who go out and steal (borrow) an MC and/or DOT number and slap it on the side of their truck. Then they "go to work".
What with my insurance costing me > 1200 A MONTH, PER TRUCK, it is easy to see why someone would want to "run illegally". It's fairly hard to get caught, unless you run across state lines. Hence, most of the people don't.
If your truck is titled, with a sticker for the correct weight, you don't go over it, and you don't have any other reason for a scale to flag you, then they don't pull you in. You don't get pulled in, you don't get busted.
At the risk of being called a racist, the BIGGEST Lusers of this type of behavior, are mexicans. Period. And, this isn't a local trend (California), this is a NATIONAL trend.
Whats sad is this: The idiots doing THIS scam didn't have to hack anything. All they had to do is look up a legit DOT / MC number for a BROKER, and then go into business with the same business name.
And brokers licenses are CHEAP. Instead of my insurance rates (600/month liability (1 million dollars), 1000/6 months Cargo, 500/month basic liability (the 600 a month liability doesn't cover you, unless you have a loaded trailer or a load in the "box truck")). For a brokers license, you need a basic 10K dollar insurance policy. Costs, at most, about 250 a month, if you go to the right insurance agent. BOC3 filings cost another 100 a year.
These people are the reasons trucking businesses are going out of business. It's hard enough having to make 3.00 a mile, when most freight will pay you 1.50 to 2.00 a mile. Then you get the .ru faggots in there stealing business, etc.
They went even farther than that. According to the Owner / Operator Independant Drivers Association (http://www.ooida.org), they have pulled Russian's out of trucks who didn't speak A WORD OF ENGLISH, where UNABLE to properly identify 3 road signs, etc., and WHERE BEHIND THE WHEEL OF 80,000 to 120,000 pound trucks. However, if you REALLY research it, you can / will find that most people who are running illegally, carry names like Jose, Manuel, etc.
Sad state of affairs, having to try to make money while people operating illegally are competing with you. Even sadder state of affairs when legal companies are getting profits skimmed off them from illegal brokers, and having to deal with Hose-A and Hose-B running illegally.
Thank GOD I had dedicated accounts who paid me regularly, and everything else was handled COD.
This isn't going to stop, nor is it going to go away. It's a fact of life, and until they do PrePass on EVERY truck (somewhat like RFID, but uses EasyTag type devices in the trucks), everyone who operates on the road has to deal with people like this.
--Toll_Free
(disclaimer: I took a motorcycle into a wall at 130MPH 6 or so months ago. My company closed at that time, so read into this what you will. Unfortunately, this WAS work related, the motorcycle was a customers, and the throttle cable stuck in a 3/4 gear shift getting the bike to my trailer.)
Except for the fact that they were stealing another company's identity, that's not a bad idea. If they'd started something called, say, "truck-bay" and allowed people to take bids from trucking companies on specific delivery jobs (tacking on a service fee of their own of course), they'd have a perfectly legitimate business.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Safersys.org runs IIS on Windows Server 2003.
I really wonder how these hackers managed to crack they way into such a well-known paragon of security and reliability.
Fantasy: http://ferrisfantasy.blogspot.com/
And wear special hats ... "trucker hats," I believe they are called.
A little bit of help from wardrobe, some minor social engineering, a little bit of that Ashton Kutcher flair, and it was time to start Punking the real truckers.
...Chasing too little demand.
Not that I don't sympathize with the plight of the trucking industry, but it sounds like the business model you're describing is no longer profitable.
The problem with the trucking industry is not illegal immigrants or unscrupulous competitors. The business you describe should, in theory, be able to attract clients willing to pay more for licensed drivers and adequate insurance. And yet they are still operating with razor thin (and even negative) margins. Most likely because their are just too many legal operations in competition for too little business.
Singling out "mexicans" (ignoring the varied origins of the local Latino population) strikes me as being quite explicitly racist in this context. You are using people of a different cultural background and physical appearance as a scapegoat for problems caused by the inherent weaknesses in your industry.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
When was the FBI contacted?