Driver arrested for stealing $2.8M tungsten shipment with fake documents

Indiana police arrested truck driver Deepak Kumar, 31, of Fresno, California on June 27 after he allegedly used fraudulent documents to obtain a shipment of nearly 40,000 pounds of Tungsten Oxide Powder valued at $2,857,500 that was bound for Mitsubishi Materials Corporation in Japan. The Greenfield Police Department received an alert at 6 a.m. that a semi truck traveling west on I-70 in Hancock County, Indiana was connected to a cargo theft reported in Pennsylvania two days earlier. Officers stopped the truck just west of the Greenfield exit and found the stolen materials still in the trailer. Kumar now faces charges of Theft by Unlawful Taking Movable Property and Criminal Use of Communication Facility under a warrant issued in Pennsylvania. He was booked into the Hancock County Jail and the truck and trailer were impounded. For trucking operations, the case underscores the risk of fraudulent load acquisition schemes that target high-value shipments. A Mitsubishi Materials representative arrived in Greenfield on June 28 to recover the cargo. Police said the investigation involved coordination between day and night shift officers and the successful use of technology to track and recover the stolen property.