Police in Greenfield, Indiana, arrested a 31-year-old truck driver, Deepak Kumar of Fresno, California, after stopping a semi-truck carrying nearly 40,000 pounds of tungsten oxide powder that authorities say was stolen in Pennsylvania and valued at about $2.86 million.
Police in Greenfield, Indiana, say they received an alert around 6 a.m. on June 27 about a semi-tractor trailer suspected of carrying a stolen cargo load connected to a theft reported in Pennsylvania. Officers located the truck traveling east on Interstate 70 in Hancock County, confirmed it matched the alert, and initiated a traffic stop.
Authorities identified the driver as Deepak Kumar, 31, of Fresno, California. Police said Kumar used fraudulent documents to obtain the cargo, and that the trailer contained 10 pallets of tungsten oxide powder weighing nearly 40,000 pounds. Greenfield police valued the shipment at $2,857,500 and said it was destined for Mitsubishi Materials Corporation in Japan.
Greenfield police said they obtained a search warrant for the truck and confirmed the cargo was inside the trailer. The recovered shipment was later turned over to a representative of Mitsubishi Materials.
Pennsylvania authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kumar in connection with the cargo theft, and Greenfield police arrested him on that warrant, according to reporting that cited the Greenfield Police Department. The Daily Wire also reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged an immigration detainer at the Bradford County Prison and that Kumar was later in ICE custody in California; the outlet cited the Department of Homeland Security for claims that Kumar entered the United States without authorization and had prior arrests for offenses including fraud and identity theft.
The available reporting did not independently establish whether tungsten oxide in this shipment was classified as “toxic” by regulators or shipping documents, and the description varied by outlet.