BILL WHITAKER:
00:01:12
Rob Carpenter has been a trucker for 25 years. He now is a trucking safety consultant and has been tracking chameleon companies, which have surged since the pandemic. Chameleon carriers, as their name suggests, are commercial trucking operations that skirt federal regulations and escape bad safety records by changing company names to evade detection.
ROB CARPENTER:
00:01:39
And when you move on to the next, you're really doing that to try to abandon the history that you've created with that other trucking company, because you've run so poorly in the past year, right. So then you just adopt a new identity, and you move on to a new carrier. Just dissolve that company-- Completely dissolve it.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:01:54
--new name on the truck and move. That's right
BILL WHITAKER:
00:01:56
You can see how easy it is in this undercover video shot by another trucker. Same drivers, same trucks, same bad records. In this case, hundreds of violations erased with the switch of a carrier name and Department of Transportation number, the federal ID used to track a carrier's safety history.
ROB CARPENTER:
00:02:16
You've got no violations. You've got no crashes. Things that people are going to look at and scrutinize on whether they're going to let you haul their freight or not don't exist. You're just a clean carrier to them.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:02:26
Networks often owned and operated from Eastern Europe, India, and Central Asia set up chameleon carriers in the US with different names and owners, who then register with the Department of Transportation, secure minimal insurance. And within 21 days, you have a trucking company. That's all it takes. That's all it takes. There's no requirement to own a trucking company that you be an American. You can start it from anywhere in the world. $1,000, pay online, say you who you say you are, and you've got a trucking company. Do you have any idea how many of them there are? You've got 700,000 trucking companies. Let's just say, the general estimate is 10% to 20% are operating somewhere in that spectrum of chameleon career. Thousands of trucking companies. That's mind-blowing. Yeah.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:03:14
Thousands of trucking companies racking up thousands of safety violations, poor maintenance, excessive driving hours, drug and alcohol use, all while evading federal enforcement. How dangerous is this?
ROB CARPENTER:
00:03:28
We're having crashes all the time. So you got 260 million other Americans on the highway sharing it with 700,000 trucking companies. You have a moral, ethical responsibility to share the road safely with those people. But when you've got 10% to 20% that are not doing that, that's an issue.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:03:45
An issue that contributed to the more than 1,300 truck-related deaths in 2024. According to data gathered by Fusable, a risk assessment firm, chameleon carriers, are four times more likely to be involved in a crash like this. The culprit in this case? A tractor-trailer tied to a network called Super Ego Holding. Its driver was going 72 miles an hour when it plowed into this school bus, critically injuring two children. according to DOT data, chameleon carriers connected to Super Ego have logged almost 15,000 safety violations and 500 accidents in the last two years. Today, there are only 350 investigators at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA, overseeing all 700,000 trucking companies on our roads. Those numbers just seem out of whack.
DEREK BARRS:
00:04:48
We are actively trying to find ways that we can do investigations more efficiently, more effectively.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:04:55
Derek Barrs took over as administrator of FMCSA in October. This past year, regulators cracked down on foreign commercial truck drivers and fraudulent commercial driving schools, and have vowed to take on chameleon carriers. Do you have the personnel and the resources you need?
DEREK BARRS:
00:05:15
We have additional 40 investigators that we're trying to hire today. We have a new registration system that we will be rolling out this year. The system we have currently is like 40 years old. I mean, you've got these rogue companies, they rack up tons of safety violations. They're a federally regulated industry. How is that possible?
DEREK BARRS:
00:05:36
We have a front door problem, meaning we need to stop this before they actually get into the system. Are you familiar with the chameleon carrier company Super Ego? Are they on your radar? They're a part of an ongoing investigation. We have prioritized companies who, through our data gathering, that are our top 10 companies that we need to be investigating.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:06:01
We reached out to Super Ego. Company lawyers told us, it's a leasing company, not a trucking firm, and that it's not responsible for the actions of affiliated carriers and drivers. But according to our investigation and court documents, that's not the whole story. Under the Super Ego umbrella, that stretches from Serbia to the US, is a vast network of separate, but coordinated companies that provide brokers, who book deliveries, dispatchers, and leases for tractors and trailers. Subsidiaries operate the trucks and hire drivers like Daniel Sanchez under lease-to-own contracts. I seen how much they don't care about you. They literally don't care about any other driver on the road at all.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:06:46
Daniel Sanchez had been driving commercial rigs for eight years when he was recruited by Super Ego in 2025. They'd have me go out and do anything to get the money, no matter what the risk. They don't care if I got a violation or went to jail or whatever, for any reason. The next day, they'd have another driver in that truck and keep on going. Can't be safe for the driver. Can't be safe for us. Anybody. Anybody.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:07:09
Super Ego branded trucks started hauling freight across America seven years ago. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
BILL WHITAKER:
00:07:15
It was founded by Serbian entrepreneur Aleksandar Memic and has grown into a sprawling enterprise tied to more than two dozen US-based carriers, with hubs in Elmhurst, Illinois, and Jacksonville, Florida, and customers as large as Amazon, Walmart, Costco, and the United States Postal Service. Super Ego Holding uses flashy recruitment campaigns--
WOMAN:
00:07:41
Get the best deal with Super Ego Holding.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:07:44
--to lure drivers, including Daniel Sanchez.
DANIEL SANCHEZ:
00:07:47
They promise you the world. They say you can make $8,000 to $10,000, $12,000 a week. So did Super Ego live up to any of those promises? Not at all.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:07:57
60 Minutesspoke with seven drivers, who told us Serbia-based managers routinely skimmed hundreds to thousands of dollars off their pay in excessive fees for their lease, insurance, and repairs. The class action lawsuit calls it a "scheme to defraud drivers." I was coming home with negative-- negative amounts on my check. Negative money. Negative. Yeah, it was in the red. I was doing around 600 to 800 miles a day with that. And you come home-- With zero.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:08:26
Drivers also told us the company would short change them by altering delivery contracts, or rate cons, which confirm how much a broker has agreed to pay to move freight. A percentage of that goes to the driver. Court documents show this rate con sheet on the left is the original. This fraudulent one on the right shows a cut of $700, resulting in reduced compensation for the trucker. A practice captured in this call between a dispatcher and another driver.
DRIVER:
00:08:56
Can you please send me the other document that the broker sent you?
DISPATCHER:
00:09:03
Yeah, I can send you, but why?
DRIVER:
00:09:05
He told me that he was sending out the rate con for $1,500. And then five minutes later, you call me, and tell me I'm getting $300. Do you see what it looks like from my point of view?
BILL WHITAKER:
00:09:19
And remember that shell game of erasing carrier names and DOT numbers to hide violations? Sanchez says he was told to do that, too. How would you physically change the number and the name? They'd email you or send you some documentation with the picture of the new name and DOT number. It had me printed out, buy some duct tape, come out, put on the truck.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:09:42
Just duct tape.
DANIEL SANCHEZ:
00:09:44
Duct tape. Yeah.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:09:45
Change the name and the number. Yeah. Totally new truck at that point.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:09:48
Drivers also told us they were being pressured to drive more hours with less sleep. After they'd already logged 11 hours behind the wheel, the legal limit, managers back in Serbia would illegally reset federally-mandated time clocks, as seen in this animation, to give drivers a fresh set of hours, as heard in this call.
DRIVER:
00:10:12
Delivering 2:00 PM in 24 hours?
DISPATCHER:
00:10:14
Yeah. Yeah.
DRIVER:
00:10:16
That's going to be awful difficult.
DISPATCHER:
00:10:17
Yeah, I know. We can fix your clock. By the push of a button, I guess, somehow, somewhere, they have control of the app where they can just reset your time and just make it go away. You've driven 11 hours, you're required to have the downtime, and they change the device to make it seem as though, you have not finished your 11 hours? Yeah. There's been a time where I drove-- I was driving for 18 hours. And I told them. I said, I'm done. I'm going to sleep, I'm parking. The text message said, they don't care about that. They're not paying for you to do anything, but use the restroom and drive.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:10:46
We met this whistleblower, a former employee of a Super Ego-affiliated company based in Serbia, in an undisclosed European city, and altered his appearance for his protection. They are only asking about making money from the driver, and they don't take care about safety standards.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:11:04
He confirmed, company dispatchers and managers were told to overwork and extort American drivers like Sanchez at every turn. They train you to do this? Yeah. They explained me that it's a normal thing to do.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:11:21
What have drivers been most upset about? They don't have money to pay bills. They don't have money to eat. They don't have money to pay rent.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:11:33
The dispatchers, do they have any concern for the drivers? Any compassion? They don't have emotions. Their job.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:11:42
It's just a job. You squeeze as much money out of this driver as you can. Yeah, it's better to our own make money than them.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:11:52
He told us taking money from drivers became a competition. Lists like this were posted inside his Belgrade office. The more they took, the bigger their bonuses. During this pay period, the top dispatcher cut nearly $24,000, or 32%, from driver's pay. Any idea how much of the company's profit is earned that way? Some week, $1 million. Some week, $2 million.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:12:22
Per week? Yes. There's a Super Ego truck right here. Due to a compliance dispute, Daniel Sanchez lost his job in January, along with his truck and the $35,000 he'd put toward owning it. For me, personally, it's crushing, because this is my dream. I wanted to own my own truck. I thought this company was going to get me to where I'm trying to be. They just don't care. You're not a human being for them. You're just a number, basically. For sure, that.
BILL WHITAKER:
00:12:50
Super Ego Holding denies any wrongdoing. But more than 800 truckers are suing it and affiliated companies for fraud and breach of contract. More of our CBS News investigation into chameleon carriers coming up on Sunday Morning. [AUDIO LOGO]
