Sanjay Singh, former owner of 166-truck Royal Bengal Logistics, Inc., was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison for a $158 million investment fraud scheme in which he lured investors into buying into his trucking fleet.
Initially, Singh had been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission after raising approximately $112 million, but the final number grew as the case rolled through the courts.
In November a jury convicted Signh, 35 and of Broward County, Florida, on "all 8 counts of an indictment that alleged that he violated federal laws criminalizing conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and engaging in transactions in unlawful proceeds," according to this release from the United States Attorney's Office of the Southern District of Florida.
Singh, RBL’s founder and president, "organized and ran a substantial Ponzi scheme with co-conspirators" beginning in January 2020 and continuing up until mid-2023, according to the release. Singh and his co-conspirators "held RBL out to potential investors as a thriving and successful trucking business, all while RBL’s actual trucking business lost money," even when rates were good post-COVID.
It's not illegal to lose money trucking, but Singh and his co-conspirators "made material misrepresentations and material omissions about the riskiness of investing in RBL, the profitability of RBL’s trucking operations, how RBL would pay its investors, and how RBL would use investor funds," the release said. Those misrepresentations brought in more than $158 million, "used in part to pay existing investors promised returns." Other monies went to renovating Singh's home, personal expenses and stock trading.
The original criminal complaint said Singh targeted Haitian-Americans with the investment opportunity. As previously reported, the Royal Bengal company claimed to have 91 drivers and 166 power units, according to filings with the FMCSA at the time of Overdrive's reporting in 2023 when charges were filed. The fleet's website described it as a "Florida based leading logistics company having its footprint in many states of USA and its extended arm in India."
Before the website was taken down, it courted both investors and drivers, with a tab advertising driving jobs that offered $2,100 weekly starting pay and an "Owner Operator Option" after six months, as well as several other significant benefits. A video featuring Singh posted in 2022 shows him in a ballroom telling a crowd he's awarding his "driver of the year" any truck up to $75,000 in value.
[Related: Florida fleet owner charged in alleged $112M Ponzi scheme]
