Posted on 01/25/2023 1:37:56 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
CLEVELAND – A Parkland, Florida, man pleaded guilty on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, to devising a scheme that defrauded several companies involved in the sale of polymers, including one business in Northeast Ohio, and multiple logistic companies, causing losses of more than $4.1 million.
According to court documents, from July 2013 to January 2020, Terrence Anderson, 66, devised a scheme to steal shipments of polymers from businesses involved in the sale of the chemicals. The scheme was achieved, in part, by fraudulently obtaining services from logistic companies involved in processing rail shipments.
Court documents show that Anderson owned and operated Coral Polymers, a corporation headquartered in Parkland that bought and resold polymers. As part of the scheme, Anderson would pose as fictional employees of well-known large corporations and contact sellers of polymers, including one company in Northeast Ohio, to facilitate large purchases of the substances, which were to be delivered by railcar to victim logistics companies at particular locations.
Contrary to his representations, court documents state that Anderson never intended to pay for the polymers but rather sought to resell them to third-party buyers. Court documents show that Anderson submitted purchase orders for shipments worth approximately $4,855,312 from at least eight sellers and obtained shipments worth more than $3.7 million from six of those sellers.
After ordering the polymers, Anderson arranged for victim logistics companies to unload the railcars, store the substances, repackage, and load them for shipment to their final destination. In addition, court documents show that Anderson enlisted the services of a co-conspirator who owned a trucking company. In an attempt to conceal the identity of the trucking company and the vehicle drivers, Anderson and the co-conspirator directed drivers picking up the shipments in semi-trailer trucks to remove or conceal vehicle license plates, provide fake identification documents if prompted, and to conceal from the logistics companies the true destinations of the deliveries.
Court documents state that Anderson, using Coral Polymers, had instead arranged to resell the shipments to third-party buyers for substantial sums of money, concealing from those buyers the true origin of the polymers.
In total, court records show that Anderson caused losses of more than $4.1 million to the victims he defrauded.
This case was investigated by the Cleveland Division of the FBI and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliot Morrison.
"Hello, this is Mr. Anderson. I'd like to place an order for $500,000 of your polymers."
Company Sales Guy: "Sure! Where should we send it? Please pay us later when you can."
It didn't work like that at the companies I worked for. How in the world did he snooker eight or more companies? Don't they run credit checks, background checks, check with the buyer's bank, require deposits, etc?
Sounds like modern CFOs are out of the 1+1=0 School of Woke Math.
I would guess he used info from legit companies who purchased his products, including copies of POs and the identities of some their purchasers, and assumed that those companies had accounts open at the bigger firms. To the seller, everything would appear Ok except maybe the destination.
Mister Anderson, one of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.
Exactly! In my experience, if they don't know us, its a credit check, call to our bank and other vendors, and even then, possibly cash-up-front. Maybe a small credit line, contingent on one order. Then their local sales rep will call and want to visit.
“You told me to stay off the freeway. You said it was suicide.”
“Then let’s hope I was wrong.”
It amazingly easy to submit fraudulent orders or invoices with companies who are used to having a large number of invoices come into their offices each day.
It’s much like the old “copy toner” fraud (although on a larger scale) where scammers would call a company, usually during the luncheon hours where a low level employee may be covering the phones. The scammer would tell the employee its time to reorder toner for their copy machines, “confirm” the type of machine by having the employee tell him the model, then a large invoice would soon arrive at accounts payable. However, no toner would actually arrive.
If an intern was covering my phone while I was out of the office, I always warned them of these types of scams and told them to tell the person to call back or leave a number where I could reach them. There is no telling the number of fake invoices paid by large companies each year.
Florida Man has surpassed New Jersey’s Toxic Avenger as my new favorite super hero
First it was automobiles, then Gucci handbags and now its polymers. What’s this society coming to?
Without certain specific polymers you cant have plastics.
Greed destroys.
From the looks of it the guy had the skills and the product to sell millions of dollars of products and would have been doing just fine if he kept it legit.
I thought Florida Man was just arrested for setting fire to condos.
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