Florida man pleads guilty in $4.1 million polymer theft scheme using disguised trucking company

This week, a Florida resident admitted to orchestrating a complex years-long scheme to steal shipments of chemicals and re-sell them to third party buyers with help from a trucking company owner as a co-conspirator.

On January 24, 2023, Terrence Anderson, 66, pleaded guilty to charges related to a scheme that defrauded several companies involved in the sale of polymers, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio.

Authorities say that the scheme lasting from July 2013 to January 2020 cost one business in Northeast Ohio and multiple logistics companies approximately $4.1 million.

According to court documents, Anderson owned and operated Coral Polymers, a corporation headquartered in Parkland, Florida, that bought and resold polymers.

From the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

“As part of the scheme, Anderson would pose as fictional employees of well-known large corporations and contact sellers of polymers, including one company in Northeast Ohio, to facilitate large purchases of the substances, which were to be delivered by railcar to victim logistics companies at particular locations. 

Contrary to his representations, court documents state that Anderson never intended to pay for the polymers but rather sought to resell them to third-party buyers.  Court documents show that Anderson submitted purchase orders for shipments worth approximately $4,855,312 from at least eight sellers and obtained shipments worth more than $3.7 million from six of those sellers.

After ordering the polymers, Anderson arranged for victim logistics companies to unload the railcars, store the substances, repackage, and load them for shipment to their final destination.  In addition, court documents show that Anderson enlisted the services of a co-conspirator who owned a trucking company.  In an attempt to conceal the identity of the trucking company and the vehicle drivers, Anderson and the co-conspirator directed drivers picking up the shipments in semi-trailer trucks to remove or conceal vehicle license plates, provide fake identification documents if prompted, and to conceal from the logistics companies the true destinations of the deliveries.”

Authorities say that Anderson used Coral Polymers to conceal the true origins of the chemicals when he re-sold them to third party buyers for “substantial sums of money.”

The Cleveland Division of the FBI investigated the case.