Inside the investigation into a double-brokering scheme — Long-Haul Crime Log

Hundreds of trucking companies had been allegedly defrauded in an elaborate scheme utilizing a controversial practice called double brokering. After months of investigating, reporter Clarissa Hawes got a tip that led to a series of bizarre phone calls with the man who owned a freight brokerage at the center of the operation. 

“You’ve got a lot of angry people … trying to find out who is trying to find them, who is trying to hurt their kids, their families,” he told Hawes. 

The latest episode of Long-Haul Crime Log wades into Hawes’ investigation into a network of companies in Southern California connected to the scheme and her efforts to find the people responsible for it. 

It led her to a transportation executive named Steve Avetyan, who once boasted of handing out Rolex watches — he called them “Rollies” — as bonuses for his best sales staff.