Foreign Freight Forwarders Steal US Maritime Identities
The US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has raised concerns about a new trend involving foreign freight forwarders, which could expose vulnerabilities in ocean supply chains. John Crews, FMC Director of Enforcement and Compliance, outlined the scheme during an FMC board meeting on October 27.
According to Crews, unregistered foreign entities are harvesting public business records from state Secretary of State offices to steal the corporate details and FMC license numbers of legitimate, US-based forwarders. These stolen credentials enable foreign operators to facilitate shipments into the US under false pretenses.
A puzzling scheme with unclear motives
This scheme is particularly baffling because the perpetrators appear to be delivering legitimate cargo. As Crews noted, “When Customs and Border Protection (CBP) opens the box, it’s exactly what the freight forwarder said was in the box.” Despite providing false information, customs duties are not defrauded, leaving the motives behind the scheme unclear.
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FMC Commissioners Rebecca Dye and Daniel Maffei expressed serious concern over the pattern. Maffei warned that using stolen domestic credentials could serve as a dry run to insert illicit goods into the US supply chain. FMC Chairman Laura DiBella added, “It’s beyond raising my Spidey senses that something very nefarious is behind all of it.”
The FMC is coordinating closely with CBP and alerting federal law enforcement due to statutory constraints limiting its direct enforcement reach over non-regulated entities overseas. This situation mirrors a rampant fraud crisis in the US trucking industry, where double-brokering and identity theft schemes have cost the sector hundreds of millions annually.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) addressed this issue by implementing major enforcement reforms, including new identity verification requirements and overhauled registration infrastructure. The FMC is now working to tackle the maritime identity theft scheme. DiBella stated, “We’re working closely with CBP on several issues and expanding that relationship to hopefully address not only this but other areas that we could possibly collaborate on.”
