A coordinated federal crackdown on trucking and commercial driver's license fraud was announced following a series of fatal crashes in Ohio involving foreign truck drivers. The initiative, led by the Departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, and Justice, targets fraudulent licensing, unauthorized employment, identity-document fraud, and shell companies. These actions follow the July 5 death of Tobias Forsythe, a 21-year-old University of Massachusetts Lowell goalkeeper, who was killed in Madison County when a semi-truck rear-ended his car. Authorities stated that the driver, 42-year-old Uzbek national Bekhzod Asrarov, entered the country under the diversity visa lottery program and could not speak or understand English well enough to communicate with state troopers without using Google Translate. Court documents indicate Asrarov allegedly removed a dashboard camera from his truck after the crash. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X that drivers who cannot read road signs or speak to law enforcement should not operate large rigs on American highways.
A researcher known as Nodawolf, who was granted anonymity by Fox News Digital due to death threats, has documented a network of Uzbek-linked trucking companies in southwest Ohio communities such as Loveland, Middletown, and Maineville. Nodawolf claims these entities have manipulated electronic logging devices and committed English violations. A Fox News Digital review identified hundreds of registered trucking entities in the region, with some linked to the local Uzbek community facing Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration safety violations.
An anonymous trucking industry veteran described a fraud scheme known as chameleon carriers, where operators create multiple separate companies that share the same drivers and assets. This structure allows operators to spread safety liability across multiple motor-carrier authorities, preventing any single entity from accumulating enough violations to damage its safety rating or face shutdown. The veteran stated that if one company is shut down or loses insurance, equipment and drivers can be moved to another entity, keeping the operation running.
The federal effort includes inspections at more than 200 driving schools across 23 states and investigations based on more than 1,000 leads. Seven of the targeted schools are located in Ohio. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a Notice of Proposed Removal for Turan CDL School in Middletown, which advertised CDL training to Uzbek speakers and suggested students could obtain licenses without first learning English.
Victor Louis of Load Secure, which verifies driver identities, estimated that 15% to 20% of drivers entering his network are non-domiciled foreign nationals holding U.S. commercial licenses. The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is reviewing its nondomiciled commercial driver's license holders with the FMCSA, noting that about 3,500 of the roughly 5,000 originally issued credentials remain active.