The US Department of Justice informed that two executives have been arrested in Miami for conspiring to fix prices for international freight forwarding services.
A criminal complaint was presented on June 29 in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana against the two executives. At a detention hearing in Florida on July 3, one of the executives was ordered detained pending trial, while the other was released on conditions including a $500,000 personal surety bond.
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According to the criminal complaint, the two men participated in a conspiracy among freight forwarding companies from at least as early as March 2014 until at least March 2015.
The conspirators met at several locations in Honduras and the US, discussing to raise prices charged to US customers, to be implemented by establishing “commissions” in port cities throughout the US to coordinate and agree on the specific rates charged to customers in each port.
The ongoing investigation into price-fixing in the international freight forwarding industry is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s Washington Criminal I Section, the FBI’s International Corruption Unit, and the FBI’s New Orleans Division.
