Date: Feb. 2, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Salt Lake City, UT — A federal jury convicted two owners of a local trucking conglomerate of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The defendants owned a group of trucking companies named Salt Lake Trucking Group (SLTG). According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, the defendants and their coconspirators paid over $300,000 in bribes to FedEx Ground employees, which resulted in SLTG receiving $108 million from FedEx over a ten-year period. At the time of the conspiracy, the defendants, Yevgeny Felix Tuchinsky of Salt Lake County, Utah, was also a resident of San Diego, California; Konstantin Mikhaylovich Tomilin of Salt Lake County, Utah, was also a resident of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Tuchinsky and Tomilin owned and operated several trucking companies consolidated under SLTG. At trial, the jury was presented with evidence that FedEx contracts with local trucking companies to haul FedEx packages in semitrucks. FedEx refers to these companies as contract service providers (CSPs). FedEx pays the CSPs by the mile. The defendants’ companies were among those local CSPs that picked up and delivered FedEx semitrailers full of packages at the FedEx Ground Hub in North Salt Lake. The CSPs provided the semitruck and driver that hauled the trailers to FedEx hubs and other facilities where the packages were eventually sorted for local delivery. Beginning around 2009 and continuing to 2019, the defendants bribed FedEx employees in exchange for those employees providing more business to SLTG. Instead of competing fairly against other CSPs for FedEx business, SLTG bribed FedEx employees to obtain more miles and more money from FedEx. The bribes resulted in SLTG obtaining unearned FedEx business for over a decade. The defendants and their coconspirators also engaged in deceptive practices to conceal from FedEx that they were violating several FedEx policies and contractual provisions. And they bribed FedEx employees to help deceive FedEx and cover up their violations. These deceptive practices included creating shell companies and lying to FedEx about the true ownership of the companies. This concealed from FedEx that SLTG owned and operated the shell companies and that the shell companies shared the same owners, assets, trucks, and employees. The defendants and their coconspirators also lied to FedEx about dozens of SLTG drivers’ qualifications on FedEx applications. Further, the defendants and their coconspirators failed to honestly report accidents to FedEx. As established at trial, had FedEx known about SLTG’s bribery, true size, ownership, false driver applications, and accidents, FedEx would have terminated SLTG and its subsidiaries as CSPs. The defendants’ bribery and lies resulting in SLTG receiving $108 million from FedEx. Tuchinsky personally gained $7 million and Tomilin personally gained over $4 million from the scheme. “Before they delivered packages, these men and their teammates delivered cash bribes,” said Stephen Dent, Assistant United States Attorney during trial. “Before their trucks pulled away from the hub to go on a run, they lied and they bribed to even get that run. $108 million by cheating.” Tuchinsky’s and Tomilin’s sentencing is scheduled for May 20, 2024, before U.S. District Court Chief Judge Robert J. Shelby at the United States District Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City. U.S. Attorney Trina A. Higgins of the District of Utah made the announcement. The case was investigated jointly by the IRS Criminal Investigation (CI), FBI Salt Lake City Division, Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Assistant United States Attorneys Cy H. Castle, Stephen P. Dent and Bryant L. Watson of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah presented the case at trial. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
