Former Trucking CEO and Employees Sentenced for Fraud

The former CEO of USA Dry Van Logistics and two other former employees were sentenced for conspiring to commit wire fraud, according to a report in The Monitor.

Former CEO Sergio Lagos, former chief operations officer Aurelio Aleman and former controller Oscar Barbosa all pled guilty after being charged by a federal court in Texas for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Aleman and Barbosa pled guilty in 2013 and Lagos in 2015.

The charges stemmed from a financing agreement that Aleman and Lagos entered into with GE Capital for a revolving line of credit that was secured by the trucking company’s accounts receivables.

Lagos admitted to scheming to defraud GE Capital by concealing from the creditor the truth about USADV’s declining operating performance and financial results to make it appear that the company was more profitable than it was.

The government estimated the loss to GE Capital at more than $26 million.

Lagos falsified documents that inflated the amount of the company’s accounts receivables and submitted them to GE Capital to obtain more funds than would have been permitted, according to the FBI. He also directed other employees to invoice millions of dollars of fraudulent receivables and forged invoices to support documentation for accounts receivables that did not exist.

As a result of these actions, USADV went into bankruptcy and re-organized under Chapter 11 proceedings and is operating with new owners.

Lagos was sentenced to 97 months in federal prison, Aleman will serve around four years and Barbosa was sentenced to two years, according to the Monitor report. The defendants were also ordered to pay $15.9 million to GE Capital. Their sentences will be followed by three years of supervised release.