Police put $273K seafood heist scheme on ice in North Arlington
An 18-year-old Bronx man and a juvenile are accused of posing as freight brokers in an attempt to divert nearly 29,000 pounds of frozen seafood.
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Police interrupted an alleged scheme to divert a commercial shipment of nearly 29,000 pounds of frozen seafood after a suspect allegedly impersonated a freight broker.
North Arlington police responded to Porete Avenue on Oct. 3 following a report of suspicious activity involving cargo being transferred from a tractor-trailer. When officers arrived, they found two people unloading pallets of frozen seafood from a refrigerated tractor-trailer into a box truck.
“The investigation revealed the tractor-trailer driver had received a series of telephone calls and text messages from an individual falsely representing himself as being associated with the freight broker responsible for the shipment,” North Arlington police said in a statement.
Investigators said the driver was instructed to divert part of the seafood shipment to North Arlington, where it would be transferred to another truck.
When the driver arrived, Jonathan Pollaguari, 18, of the Bronx, and a juvenile showed up in a 26-foot box truck and began loading pallets of seafood from the tractor-trailer, according to police.
“As the transfer continued, the legitimacy of the transaction was questioned,” police said.
Investigators determined that Pollaguari and the juvenile had no affiliation with a legitimate freight broker and were allegedly posing as representatives of the company in an effort to take possession of the shipment.
The cargo, valued at more than $273,000, consisted primarily of frozen shrimp, along with salmon, conch meat and branzino.
Pollaguari and the juvenile were taken into custody.
Pollaguari was charged with theft by deception, false representation, conspiracy and employing a juvenile in the commission of a crime. He was also issued summonses for driving without a license, failure to possess an insurance card and operating an uninsured motor vehicle.
