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Polar Air Cargo execs charged in US$52 million fraud scheme
来源：shippingazette 编辑：编辑部 发布：2023/04/21 16:53:46
US law enforcement officials have arrested nine individuals in connection with a plot to defraud Polar Air Cargo, partially owned by express delivery giant DHL, of millions of dollars," reports New York's FreightWaves.
Four former executives were charged with accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks from six co-conspirators who owned or operated companies that provided services to Polar Air Cargo, or were customers, in exchange for ensuring the airline gave them favourable business deals, according to the indictment unsealed by the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.
The senior Polar executives also reaped substantial benefits as a result of secret ownership interests in some of the company's vendors.
They were each charged with four counts of wire fraud, each punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Some defendants were indicted on three counts. A 10th individual was indicted but remains at large.
Among the former Polar executives indicted by the Justice Department is Lars Winkelbauer who was chief operating officer for three years until July 2021.
Winkelbauer joined DHL from Polar in 2007 and, in an unusual arrangement, the courier allowed him to hold dual leadership positions at both companies. Between 2014 and 2018, he served as DHL's vice president for aviation and network planning in the Asia Pacific region and had a similar role at Polar.
Winkelbauer was arrested in Thailand and will be extradited to the United States.
The executive defendants utilised their positions at Polar to secure favourable contracts, priority cargo space, favourable shipping rates and enrollment in various incentive programmes for their outside partners and their businesses.
In return, the vendor defendants paid kickbacks in various forms, including in payments calculated per kilo of cargo shipped with Polar or as a percentage of the revenue earned as a result of the vendor's relationship with Polar.
The other defendants who worked at Polar Air Cargo are Abilash Kurien (vice president of marketing, revenue management and network planning), Carlton Llewellyn (vice president, operations systems performance and quality) and Robert Schirmer (senior director, customer service for the Americas).
To conceal the kickbacks and conflicted ownership interests from Polar, Winkelbauer and the others often directed that the kickbacks and ownership distributions be paid to limited liability companies with nondescript names that they, in fact, controlled. In total they pocketed about $23 million, according to authorities.
Four former executives were charged with accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks from six co-conspirators who owned or operated companies that provided services to Polar Air Cargo, or were customers, in exchange for ensuring the airline gave them favourable business deals, according to the indictment unsealed by the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.
The senior Polar executives also reaped substantial benefits as a result of secret ownership interests in some of the company's vendors.
They were each charged with four counts of wire fraud, each punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Some defendants were indicted on three counts. A 10th individual was indicted but remains at large.
Among the former Polar executives indicted by the Justice Department is Lars Winkelbauer who was chief operating officer for three years until July 2021.
Winkelbauer joined DHL from Polar in 2007 and, in an unusual arrangement, the courier allowed him to hold dual leadership positions at both companies. Between 2014 and 2018, he served as DHL's vice president for aviation and network planning in the Asia Pacific region and had a similar role at Polar.
Winkelbauer was arrested in Thailand and will be extradited to the United States.
The executive defendants utilised their positions at Polar to secure favourable contracts, priority cargo space, favourable shipping rates and enrollment in various incentive programmes for their outside partners and their businesses.
In return, the vendor defendants paid kickbacks in various forms, including in payments calculated per kilo of cargo shipped with Polar or as a percentage of the revenue earned as a result of the vendor's relationship with Polar.
The other defendants who worked at Polar Air Cargo are Abilash Kurien (vice president of marketing, revenue management and network planning), Carlton Llewellyn (vice president, operations systems performance and quality) and Robert Schirmer (senior director, customer service for the Americas).
To conceal the kickbacks and conflicted ownership interests from Polar, Winkelbauer and the others often directed that the kickbacks and ownership distributions be paid to limited liability companies with nondescript names that they, in fact, controlled. In total they pocketed about $23 million, according to authorities.