In July 2022, a Los Angeles cop ran a standard records check on an Amazon delivery van she’d spotted and found it had been reported stolen. When she pulled the van over, she discovered five people hiding in its rear cargo area; Investigators would later determine them to be unauthorized immigrants.
The operation was run, in part, by an L.A.-based family of four, whose son had spent thousands converting the van to make it look like a legitimate Amazon vehicle, according to criminal charges and a search warrant obtained by Forbes. The van would pick individuals up after they made it across the border illegally and help transport them around the country.
Previously, drug traffickers have used a similar tactic: in January two Chinese nationals were convicted of a marijuana dealing conspiracy in which they delivered weed shipments via fake Amazon delivery vans.
www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2024/03/01/amazon-van-fake-in-human-smuggling-charges/