Two Louisiana freight forwarding executives have plead guilty for their role in a nationwide conspiracy to fix prices in the industry's ocean shipping sector.
Roberto Dip and Jason Handel, chief executive and manager of an unnamed company, have agreed to pay a criminal fine and assist with the ongoing investigation into the scheme after colluding with other ocean freight forwarding companies to raise prices on their American customers, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
“Through these plea agreements, the Antitrust Division and the FBI hold accountable two senior executives who conspired to cheat American customers,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.
Dip and Handel were originally charged in the Eastern District of Louisiana in October. The case was later moved to the Southern District of Florida, where they entered their plea.
Per the criminal complaint, Dip met with other freight forwarding executives involved in shipping cargo from the US to his native Honduras and elsewhere in 2014 in San Pedro Sula.
There, the executives agreed to raise prices for American customers and charged various regional commissions to implement the agreement. Dip — has connections to Honduran soccer team Club Deportivo y Social Vida — appointed himself the head of the New Orleans commission and Handel attended those meetings.
In the complaint, law enforcement excerpted several emails where Dip acknowledges that the collusion is illegal while worrying about leaving a paper trail.
In one email to employees, sent in the run up to one of the commission meetings, Dip notes "there are Anti-Trust laws that penalize businesses that collude to fix prices."
He goes on to write that "we must explain this to them ... so nothing appears in writing."
