Arrested in Illinois, Operating in Florida: How Rafael Ohanesyan Moved From Spark Moving to Bulls Moving to Hercules Moving Solutions

This is another story about an operator, not a company. Companies get revoked, shut down, and replaced. The operator opens a new one in a different state.

Rafael Ohanesyan has been connected to household goods moving companies for at least a decade. The documented chain: Spark Moving Company in Schaumburg, Illinois (revoked by both the Illinois Commerce Commission and FMCSA in 2019), Bulls Moving in Gurnee, Illinois (12+ attorney general investigations, owner arrested, $39,000 civil judgment never collected, now out of business), and Hercules Moving Solutions in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (113 NCCDB complaints, named defendant in Peterfai v. USA Logistics in federal court).

The pattern is the same one Trunk has documented in the Hasut network (Spirit Vanlines to Handle With Care to JCS Moving): operate until enforcement catches up, then move to a new state and start again.

Spark Moving Company (DOT 3068586) was registered in Schaumburg, Illinois. Ohanesyan was listed as a dispatcher from January 2017 to January 2018.

Spark's BBB profile accumulated complaints. Its Yelp reviews documented the standard playbook: lowball estimates followed by moving-day price increases, hostage loads, and damaged property.

On August 1, 2019, the Illinois Commerce Commission revoked Spark Moving's household goods mover license (ILCC 221900) and its public carrier certificate. FMCSA also revoked the company's federal authority.

Dual revocation, state and federal, for the same company. The system worked. The operator moved on.

Bulls Moving Inc. (DOT 3312217) was registered in Gurnee, Illinois, with Ohanesyan as owner (Florida SunBiz P20000094602).

CBS Chicago investigated Bulls Moving over nearly two years. Reporters Lauren Victory and Tim McNicholas documented the pattern: extorted fees, damaged goods, stolen property. Consumer Eric Reisner hired Bulls Moving for a Wisconsin-to-Texas move. Problems began at pickup. After the CBS investigation aired, Bulls Moving had been the subject of more than a dozen investigations by the Illinois Attorney General's office. Complaints came in from all over the country.

Ohanesyan was arrested. CBS Chicago reported the arrest in a separate story.

Reisner spent another year fighting Bulls Moving in court and won a $39,000 judgment against Ohanesyan. He has not been able to collect anything. 'They have run a background on assets, and there is no assets in his name or in the company name,' Reisner said. He is out of options because Bulls Moving is now out of business.

A separate investigation by KY3 (Springfield, Missouri) documented a veteran's family who paid $14,000 for a move to the Ozarks and never received their belongings.

Bulls Moving is now closed. The operator is not.

Hercules Moving Solutions Inc. (DOT 3497836) is registered at 300 SE 2nd Street, Suite 600, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Ohanesyan is a named principal. The company has accumulated 113 NCCDB complaints.

Hercules operates as a household goods broker. It does not own trucks. It quotes consumers, collects deposits, and dispatches carriers. In the Peterfai v. USA Logistics case (S.D. Cal., 23-cv-1695), court-filed exhibits show Hercules' binding moving estimate with a fabricated 53.55% tariff discount (the highest documented fake discount in Trunk's database) and a $4,500 binding estimate fee on a $3,654 basic price (the fee exceeded the cost of the move itself).

The consumer was quoted $6,597 by Hercules. On moving day, USA Logistics (the carrier Hercules dispatched) arrived and demanded $17,500. The consumer's credit card payment for the deposit was processed by Rado Express Logistics, a third entity. A fourth company (Monopoly Moving) delivered, demanding cash in a different state.

Hercules' position in this chain is the same as Coastal's (229 complaints), Menards' (290 complaints), and Safe Ship's (404 complaints): a Florida broker that collects the money, dispatches an unvetted carrier, and disclaims responsibility for what happens next.

Florida SunBiz records show five entities registered under Rafael Ohanesyan:

1. Bulls Moving Inc. (P20000094602): the Illinois operation, registered in Florida 2. AMA Venture Funding Corp (P22000002958) 3. Dedicated Venture Corp (P23000040693) 4. Rhino Health Group LLC (L25000533874) 5. R&R Media Group LLC (L26000021341)

AMA Venture Funding and Dedicated Venture are corporate entities with no apparent connection to moving. Rhino Health Group and R&R Media Group were registered in 2025 and 2026 respectively. The pattern of registering non-moving corporate entities alongside moving companies is consistent with asset protection strategies designed to keep personal and business assets out of judgment creditors' reach. Eric Reisner's experience confirms this: after winning a $39,000 judgment, his attorneys found no assets in Ohanesyan's name or in any company name.

In October 2025, a Florida SunBiz filing showed Hercules Moving Solutions owned by Dedicated Venture Corp, one of Ohanesyan's shell companies (SunBiz P23000040693). In December 2025, an amended filing changed the Hercules president to Roman Shmulevich.

Shmulevich is not new to the moving industry. He is listed as CFO of Easy Road Moving and Storage (Miami, FMCSA DOT 3491781), whose authority has been revoked. He is also CFO of Best Choice Transportation (DOT 4195871, North Miami). In early 2026, Shmulevich incorporated yet another moving company: United Moving Mgmt LLC.

The pattern is familiar. Ohanesyan used Dedicated Venture Corp to hold Hercules, then installed Shmulevich as president while Hercules was accumulating complaints and facing federal litigation. Shmulevich, who is already connected to a revoked carrier, is now the face of Hercules while simultaneously starting a new company. This mirrors how Hasut used Damian Cowell as the incorporator for JCS while maintaining operational control of the Handle With Care successor.

The shell company layer (Dedicated Venture Corp holding Hercules) makes the ownership transfer harder to trace. A consumer or investigator checking Hercules' SunBiz filing in January 2026 would see Shmulevich as president, not Ohanesyan. But the corporate chain, Ohanesyan to Dedicated Venture to Hercules to Shmulevich, is documented in sequential SunBiz filings.

The Ohanesyan chain exposes the same structural failure documented across Trunk's investigations.

Illinois acted. The Illinois Commerce Commission revoked Spark's license. The Illinois Attorney General investigated Bulls Moving more than a dozen times. Ohanesyan was arrested. A court entered a $39,000 judgment.

None of it stopped him.

The revocation applied to Spark Moving in Illinois, not to Ohanesyan as an individual. The arrest did not result in a conviction that would bar him from the industry. The judgment was uncollectable because there were no assets. And FMCSA's registration system contains no mechanism to flag an applicant whose previous company was revoked in another state, who was arrested for moving fraud, or who has an uncollected civil judgment from a consumer he defrauded.

Ohanesyan registered Hercules in Florida. FMCSA granted authority. The company now has 113 federal complaints and is a defendant in federal court for the same pattern that got his Illinois companies shut down.

The system revokes companies. It does not revoke operators. Until it does, operators like Ohanesyan will continue to move from state to state, registering new entities after each enforcement action, with FMCSA granting fresh authority each time.

In late September 2026, FMCSA closed an enforcement case against Hercules Moving Solutions. It was one of only two broker enforcement cases closed since FY 2024, the other being DA Moving. The combined settlement for both cases was $10,280.

This is the first documented federal enforcement consequence for any entity in the Ohanesyan chain. Spark was revoked by Illinois and FMCSA in 2019. Bulls generated 12+ AG investigations and a $39,000 uncollected judgment. Hercules accumulated 113 federal complaints and was named as a defendant in Peterfai v. USA Logistics. Through all of this, FMCSA had not taken enforcement action until now.

The settlement amount, a portion of $10,280 split across two cases, is minimal. For context, the Peterfai case alone documented a binding estimate fee of $4,500 on a $3,654 basic price, with volume inflated 84% on moving day. The enforcement penalty is a fraction of the revenue from a single consumer.

FMCSA does not publish the actual enforcement decisions by regional directors. The violations found, the evidence reviewed, and the reasoning behind the settlement amount are not public.

The Ohanesyan chain parallels the Hasut chain Trunk documented in September 2026.

Moran Eli Hasut operated Spirit Vanlines (Atlanta, 2016), which lost its license in 2018 and renamed to Moving Services. He then operated Handle With Care Moving (revoked three times, 147 complaints) and JCS Moving and Storage (registered five days before Handle With Care's final revocation, 47 complaints in four months). Georgia's Department of Public Safety branded the Hasut companies as illegal carriers in June 2026.

Both operators share the same playbook: operate in one state until enforcement catches up, then register a new company in a different state. Both have documented arrest or enforcement histories that FMCSA's registration system does not flag. Both continue to operate with fresh federal authority.

The difference: Hasut stayed in Georgia. Ohanesyan moved from Illinois to Florida, the state with the highest concentration of moving fraud brokers in the country. His 113-complaint Hercules operation is one of dozens of Florida brokers generating hundreds of complaints while FMCSA closes zero broker enforcement cases.