One man pleaded guilty to charges in federal court earlier this month in connection with a double brokering scheme, according to the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Transportation Department.

On Dec 12, Dragan Simovski, the operator Freedom Transportation Inc., based in Illinois, admitted to wire fraud in Chicago. He was previously indicted in April 2013, and charged with wire fraud and mail fraud related to this scheme.

Simovski admitted that he and other individuals were involved in a double brokering scheme, where they falsely claimed that Freedom Transportation would use its own trucks to transport freight, knowing that Freedom had no trucks, according to the Inspector General’s office.

As part of the scheme, Simovski would enter into contracts with companies on behalf of Freedom, promising to transport freight for those companies. He provided information about the freight loads to a co-conspirator broker knowing that the broker would find other companies to transport and deliver the freight.

Both Simovski and the co-conspirator agreed that Freedom would bill the customers as if they had kept and performed the jobs, knowing that in many instances, they would not pay the companies that actually did the work.

The loss to the companies that actually delivered the freight is approximately $532,000, according to the Inspector General’s Office, which conducted the investigation with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.