Man Charged in Organized Cargo Theft of Snow Crab, Blueberries, Cologne

A New York man has been arrested and charged for allegedly conspiring to use hacked email accounts of legitimate truck-load carriers to book cargo with shippers and selling the items for illicit profit.

Forbes was arrested on Feb. 5 in Long Island, N.Y. and will make his initial appearance in the Eastern District of New York. He will appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley and Ted E. Docks, Special Agent with the Boston office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, made the announcement.

Cargo Theft Losses Surge A rise in criminals targeting high-value freight theft is pushing losses higher, according to Verisk CargoNet analysis. Estimated losses surged 60% from 2024 numbers to nearly $725 million, while confirmed cargo theft incidents increased 18%. The average theft value rose to $273,990, up 36% from $202,364 in 2024, driven by more selective, high-value targeting by organized groups, the cargo theft monitoring company showed. In a separate freight cargo theft case reported in December that is still under investigation, a shipment of lobster meat worth $400,000 that was being held in a Taunton, Massachusetts cold storage facility was apparently stolen by a person posing as a truck driver for a legitimate freight carrier. Prior to that alleged heist, police said a shipment of crabmeat was stole from the same storage facility 10 days earlier

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations and Forbes is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in the court of law.

According to the charging documents, on July 15, 2025, Forbes allegedly stole 33,750 pounds of frozen snow crabs worth $325,000 from a warehouse in Worcester, Mass. Prior to the theft, a co-conspirator allegedly hacked into the email account of a trucking carrier company.

The co-conspirator, pretending to work for that carrier, and using the carrier’s email account, allegedly contracted with a transportation business to ship the goods to a customer in Jacksonville, Fla.

Forbes then allegedly arrived at the warehouse in Worcester pretending to work for the carrier, loaded the seafood into his truck, and drove off.

Prosecutors say that instead of delivering the seafood to the customer in Florida, Forbes allegedly transported it to a grocery store business in Queens, N.Y., where he took a picture of the pallets of packaged crabs.

Prosecutors claim that before the alleged seafood heist, following similar procedures and working with a co-conspirator, Forbes allegedly stole a shipment of blueberries in Winslow Junction, N.J. in June and a month later allegedly stole approximately $433,830 worth of cologne in Ronkonkama, N.Y.

*Allegedly stolen cargo. U.S. Attorney’s Office supplied photo from charging documents.*

Prosecutors claim that instead of delivering the blueberries to the purported customer in Illinois, Forbes allegedly arranged to illicitly sell the fruit to his phone contact that he called, “My customer for everything.”

Also, according to prosecutors, instead of delivering the fragrances to the supposed customer in California, Forbes allegedly contacted his “customer for everything” offering to sell the cologne and sent the contact a video of the cologne, to which the contact replied, “Ok.”

Top Photo: U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts supplied photo of alleged cargo theft operation.

Topics Fraud Trucking

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