On September 21, 2012, Sundiata Bilal Simba picked up a load of 1,512 cases of beer from Nuks Trucking in Houston and was supposed to deliver the load to Corpus Christi.
Harris County prosecutors say that the 52-year-old driver instead stole the load and sold it.
Simba’s boss Robert Riles told police that after Simba picked up his load, he called later in the day to say his truck had broken down on the side of the road and didn’t have enough money for the $2,000 tow bill. Riles told Simba he was on his way to help.
Riles got in his car and drove to Mathis, where Simba said he was broken down. Â However, when Riles arrived in Mathis, Simba’s orange Frieghtliner was nowhere to be found. Â Riles tried calling Simba, but he did not answer his phone, so he headed back to Houston.
[pullquote align=”right”]”Simba told him that he sold the load because he needed the money.”[/pullquote]
According to the Houston Chronicle, while on his way back to Houston, Riles flagged down a Department of Public Safety trooper and asked him if he had heard any reports of a broken down truck. Â The trooper told Riles that he had not.
While on his way back to Nuks Trucking, Riles got a call from Simba.
According to the arrest warrant, “Simba told him that he sold the load because he needed the money.”
On September 25, Houston Police got a call from a Houston resident stating that a man was selling beer out of a trailer parked in front of a residence.
When Houston Police arrived at the residence, a man told the police that the beer had been purchased from an orange Freightliner.
“On Oct. 2, Houston police went to the 8000 block of Parker Road near the horse arena and found numerous wooden pallets marked “AB,” along with plastic wrappings marked with bar codes and several damaged Budweiser cardboard boxes,” the Houston Chronicle reported.
Investigators said the barcodes matched the stolen load.
Simba was arrested  and prosecutors are charing him with felony theft.