Feds Charge 10 in Decade-Long Fraud Scheme

Photo Courtesy of DOJ Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams

By Forum Staff Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams recently announced the unsealing of a four-count indictment charging Flushing resident Patrick Lau, Lars Winkelbauer, Abilash Kurien, Carlton Llewellyn, Robert Schirmer, Skye Xu, Benjamin Wei, Alvaro Lopez, Fabiola Cino, and Orlando Wong, in connection with a massive scheme to defraud Polar Air Cargo Worldwide, Inc. (“Polar”), a leading cargo airline, of tens of millions of dollars in revenue and the honest services of its employees.

As alleged in the indictment: From at least in or about 2009 through in or about July 2021, the 10 defendants participated in a massive scheme to defraud Polar. At all relevant times, Winkelbauer, Kurien, Llewellyn, and Schirmer (collectively, the “Executive Defendants”) were senior executives of Polar.

Lau, Xu, Wei, Lopez, Cino, and Wong (collectively, the “Vendor Defendants”) owned and operated various Polar vendors and customers. The Executive Defendants agreed to accept millions of dollars in kickbacks from the Vendor Defendants and also reaped substantial financial benefits as a result of their secret ownership interests in certain Polar vendors, in exchange for ensuring that those vendors received favorable business arrangements with Polar. The fraud they perpetrated — which involved a substantial portion of Polar’s senior management and at least 10 customers and vendors of Polar — led to pervasive corruption of Polar’s business, touching nearly every aspect of the company’s operations, for over a decade.

Polar’s business involved numerous outside vendors and customers. Polar relied heavily on third-party, general sales agents (“GSAs”) in the United States to sell cargo space on its planes. In turn, the GSAs hired by Polar often sold available cargo space to freight forwarding vendors, which had been hired by downstream customers to coordinate transportation logistics for large quantities of goods.

Polar also contracted with ground handling vendors to load and unload cargo and with trucking vendors to transport cargo from domestic locations to the appropriate airports. In addition, Polar contracted with other partners for a variety of business reasons, including to secure cargo space on airline routes not serviced by Polar flights. The scheme to defraud Polar touched on each aspect of these operations.

Together, the Executive Defendants and the Vendor Defendants defrauded Polar by corrupting Polar’s relationships with GSAs, freight forwarders, and other vendors, including those providing ground handling and trucking services. Unbeknownst to Polar, the Executive Defendants utilized their positions within Polar to secure, among other things, favorable contracts, valuable cargo space, favorable shipping rates, and enrollment in various incentive programs for the Vendor Defendants and their entities. In return, the Vendor Defendants paid the Executive Defendants kickbacks in various forms, including, for example, in payments calculated per kilo of cargo shipped with Polar or as a percentage of the revenue earned as a result of a vendor’s relationship with Polar.

In addition, the Executive Defendants, in various combinations, held concealed ownership positions in certain companies which contracted with Polar and that were, in at least one case, associated with the Vendor Defendants.

As a result, the Executive Defendants received ownership distributions based, in large part, on revenue derived from contracts with Polar — contracts that had been secured and, oftentimes, renewed due to, in large part, the recommendation of the Executive Defendants with conflicts of interest.

A financial analysis estimates that, as a result of the fraudulent scheme, Polar suffered at least approximately £52 million in losses between in or about 2009 and in or about July 2021.