Air Cargo Carriers LLC, a turboprop freighter operator, paid the government more than $350,000 to settle charges that it manipulated shipping data to avoid late-delivery penalties under a U.S. Postal Service contract to transport mail in the Caribbean, FreightWaves has learned.
The air cargo industry has a history of similar scams that took advantage of the Postal Service.
Milwaukee-based Air Cargo Carriers operates 26 Shorts SD3-60 converted cargo aircraft with an average age of more than 40 years. In addition to flying for the Postal Service, the company also provides regional feeder service for UPS’s parcel network. The company’s website lists routes between smaller cities in the Ohio Valley and Louisville International Airport, where UPS’s global air hub is located.
The U.S. Postal Service inspector general in late August issued a one-page summary of an audit conducted on a commercial air carrier for falsifying billing data for mail service between San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Thomas and St. Croix. “On paper, the carrier was meeting the contract terms for deliveries when, in fact, it consistently failed to do so,” the case study said.
The carrier that committed the fraud over a nearly four-year span was Air Cargo Carriers, according to the investigative file provided Monday to FreightWaves through a Freedom of Information Act request.
