A 24-year-old truck driver is sitting in the Allen County Jail in Indiana, accused of walking into a freight facility under another man's name and trying to drive away with a load of copper wire worth about $115,000. Police say the pickup collapsed because alert staff could not verify the licence he showed them — and because the real trucking company warned the shipper, in time, that its email had been hacked.
According to reporting by WANE 15 in Fort Wayne, based on police and court information, the man arrested is Arshdeep Singh, 24. Earlier this month he arrived at a freight company in Allen County claiming to be a driver named Brar Kavy, and presented a commercial driver's licence (CDL) carrying that name. He was there to collect a shipment of 22,740 pounds of copper wire, valued at about $115,000, WANE 15 reported.
How the pickup fell apart at the dock
Employees at the facility tried to verify the CDL and the registration Singh presented, but could not verify them, according to the reporting. At the same time, the facility received a warning from the trucking company Singh claimed to be working for: the company told the shipper that its email had been compromised. Faced with documents that would not check out and a fraud warning from the real carrier, staff sent Singh away without the load.
Source: WANE 15 via CDLLife
That decision at the loading dock is the reason this story is about an attempted theft rather than a stolen load. The copper wire never left the facility.
Cameras, a stolen trailer and a truck stop on I-69
The case did not end at the gate. Flock licence-plate cameras in the area captured the semi-truck leaving the facility and travelling to a truck stop at Indiana State Road 13 and Interstate 69, according to the reporting. When officers ran the plates on the semi, they came back as registered to a stolen trailer.
Police then approached Singh. According to the reporting, he told officers that a friend had asked him to pick up the load because the friend was sick. He also told police, the reports say, that the friend had instructed him to change the plates, the trailer unit number and even the company logo on the truck, and to pick up another load in a nearby town afterwards. Those statements are Singh's account as reported from police information; they have not been tested in court.
A California licence that was already disqualified
Investigators then established a further problem. Singh did hold a real CDL — issued in California — but that licence had been disqualified, according to the reporting. Driving a commercial vehicle on a disqualified licence is itself an offence, separate from the alleged impersonation.
Why this case matters for truckers, including Punjabi drivers
The method described by police — a compromised company email, a driver arriving under a borrowed name, and instructions to swap plates, unit numbers and logos — is the pattern the freight industry calls a fictitious pickup: a load is collected by someone posing as the legitimate carrier, and by the time the real carrier arrives, the freight is gone. Copper is a frequent target because it is valuable by weight and can be resold through scrap channels.
For the many Punjabi and South Asian drivers who run California-to-Midwest lanes — Singh's own real licence was Californian, and the facility he is accused of targeting sits off I-69, one of the main freight corridors through Indiana — the case is a warning in both directions. Shippers are verifying paperwork harder after cases like this, which means honest drivers should expect stricter checks at pickup. And any driver asked by a 'friend' or a broker to collect a load under another name, or to change plates and logos first, is being asked to step into exactly the fact pattern police describe here.
Arshdeep Singh is charged, not convicted. Attempted theft, identity deception and operating while disqualified are allegations set out in police and court reporting, and he is presumed innocent unless and until a court finds otherwise.
What happens next
Singh remains in custody at the Allen County Jail, according to the reporting. His case will move through the Allen County courts, where prosecutors will have to prove the attempted theft and identity deception charges and where Singh will have the opportunity to answer the account attributed to him. Awaaz Punjab will follow the court proceedings.
Source: CDLLife