10 Individuals Charged With Defrauding International Cargo Airline
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York charged 10 individuals linked to a "massive scheme" to defraud cargo line Polar Air Cargo Worldwide of tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Nine of the individuals were arrested April 12; one remains at large. Some of the individuals served as executives at Polar while others worked as vendors doing business with the company.
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Polar heavily relied on third-party, general sales agents in the U.S. to sell cargo space on planes it operates. The agents sold this space to freight forwarding vendors hired by other customers to coordinate transportation logistics for large amounts of goods, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Polar also contracted with ground handling vendors, trucking vendors and other partners for a host of other reasons. "The scheme to defraud Polar touched on each aspect of these operations," the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
The defendants allegedly corrupted Polar's relationships with the service agents, freight forwarders and vendors. The four defendants who worked at Polar allegedly used their executive positions to secure favorable contracts, cargo space, shipping rates and enrollment in incentive programs for the defendants that served as vendors and their entities. The vendor defendants paid over $23 million in kickbacks to the executives, the U.S. Attorney's Office alleged. Polar allegedly suffered at least $52 million in losses from 2009 to 2021.