Operation Stow Biz: The Largest Moving Fraud Prosecution in American History

In February 2003, the FBI announced the conclusion of Operation Stow Biz, a two-year undercover investigation into household goods moving fraud in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, Florida. The result: 74 people indicted across 16 moving companies. Fifty were arrested. The remaining defendants became fugitives.

It was the largest criminal prosecution of moving fraud in American history. Twenty-three years later, it still is.

The investigation was led by the FBI, not FMCSA, not the DOT Office of Inspector General alone. It required years of sustained interagency coordination, undercover operations, and the resources of the federal criminal justice system. That level of effort produced 74 indictments from 16 companies. The everyday consumer complaint pipeline, which processes thousands of complaints per year through FMCSA, produces zero criminal prosecutions on its own.

The charges included conspiracy, extortion, wire fraud, and false documentation. The indictments described a systematic fraud operation: artificially low estimates designed to win customers, blank or incomplete paperwork rushed through on moving day, cubic footage inflation after belongings were loaded onto the truck, hostage loads where delivery was withheld until customers paid the inflated price, and refusal to disclose warehouse locations when consumers tried to recover their property.

The language of the federal charges is precise: defendants were accused of 'inflating the price of the move and thereafter withholding delivery of goods until customers paid the inflated price.' That sentence, written in 2003, describes exactly what Trunk documents across dozens of companies in 2026.

Advanced Moving Systems in Sunrise, Florida was the anchor company. Fifteen other companies were connected to the conspiracy. The network operated interchangeably, with shared employees, shared warehouses, and shared methods.

Of the 74 people indicted, 50 were arrested. The rest became fugitives. As of September 2026, at least 10 fugitives from the Operation Stow Biz indictments remain on the DOT OIG Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Shlomo Molaim, a foreman who used the aliases 'Sam' and 'Sammy,' is among them. Tamir Cohen, who used the aliases 'Tony' and 'Tommy Chance,' is another. All 10 are listed as Known Associates of each other on the OIG website: Shlomo Molaim, Tamir Cohen, Choni Aloul, Guy Ashkenazi, Eddei Benita, Oshri Cohen, Eyal Zeira, Zion Rokah, Eli Peretz, Itzhak Luzon, and Yosef Schvartzman.

Additional fugitives from related 2003 indictments in the Southern District of Florida include Moshe Bachar, charged alongside seven co-conspirators with conspiracy and money laundering. Moshe Elmakias, charged for operating Moving Systems Inc, AAA Van Lines, Ameri Van Lines, and SI Trucking as interchangeable entities. Shai Oren, Yuval Perez (alias 'Israel'), Neil Shlomo Liebich, and Eyal Malul (alias 'Ben Levy') also remain at large.

These fugitives have been wanted for over two decades. The DOT OIG maintains their profiles with photographs at oig.dot.gov/wanted-fugitives.

Operation Stow Biz did not exist in isolation. The same month, February 2003, saw additional grand jury indictments in the Southern District of Florida targeting separate but parallel moving fraud networks.

US v Malol (Case 1:03-cr-20157) charged Yair Malol and 19 co-defendants for operating Majesty Moving and Storage, Apollo Van Lines, America's Best Movers Company, First Class Moving, The Movers Express, and Star Movers as interchangeable entities. The 47-page indictment documented conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion, and money laundering.

US v Elbaz (Case 1:03-cr-20139) charged Simo Elbaz and seven others for operating Moving Systems Inc, AAA Van Lines, Ameri Van Lines, and SI Trucking, all based in North Miami Beach and Miami. Elbaz owned all three companies. His foreman, Moshe Elmakias (alias Moses Makias), supervised loading and inflated prices by claiming goods exceeded the estimated cubic footage. In one documented case, a victim named James Balderrama was quoted $3,600, then told after loading: 'You are going to pay for this, or you will not get your stuff.' The final demand: $8,600.

Elmakias pled guilty to one count of conspiracy and two counts of extortion. He was fitted with an ankle bracelet. In October 2003, he requested its removal, complaining it disturbed customers at his new workplace. From February 2004, he failed to meet with his parole officer. He missed his sentencing hearing. A warrant was issued in May. He was declared a fugitive in June 2004.

Simo Elbaz, the owner, was charged with 23 crimes including conspiracy to commit money laundering (maximum 15+ years). He was declared a fugitive in August 2003 after failing to appear for court proceedings. According to investigative reporting in 2022, Elbaz is believed to still reside in the Southern District of Florida, the same federal district where he is a wanted fugitive.

Three separate federal prosecutions of moving fraud networks, all filed in the same district in the same month. South Florida in 2003 was the epicenter of organized household goods fraud in the United States. FBI Special Agent Hector Pesquera, who supervised Operation Stow Biz, called the crimes 'despicable': 'Victims trusted their cherished belongings to these moving companies, only to find their belongings held hostage. Countless memories and heirlooms have been damaged and destroyed and can never be replaced.' US Attorney Marcos Daniel Jimenez stated: 'One of our quintessential freedoms is the freedom to move about the country, to change homes, careers, and in essence, change our lives. These defendants struck at that freedom and used the victims' own personal property to extort money.'

The federal government threw everything it had at the problem. The prosecutions produced indictments, arrests, and convictions. They did not end the problem.

The fraud documented in Operation Stow Biz in 2003 is not historical. It is current.

Low estimates designed to win the customer. Blank or incomplete paperwork. Cubic footage inflation after loading. Hostage loads. Cash demands. Refusal to disclose warehouse locations. Threats of auction. Multiple company names for a single operation.

Trunk tracks these exact tactics across active companies in 2026. Safe Ship Moving, Menards Moving, Coastal Moving Services, Value Added Moving and Storage, and dozens of others use the same playbook that produced 74 federal indictments two decades ago.

The prosecution proved the fraud was criminal. The industry continued using the same methods. The companies changed names. The people changed. The scheme did not.

FMCSA has closed zero broker enforcement cases since September 2024. The agency responsible for regulating household goods movers and brokers has not completed a single enforcement action against a broker in over two years. The FBI proved in 2003 that these practices constitute federal crimes. FMCSA treats them as regulatory matters, when it treats them at all.

Operation Stow Biz demonstrates three things.

First, moving fraud at this scale requires criminal investigation, not regulatory complaint processing. The FBI spent two years building these cases. FMCSA's complaint system is designed to receive and categorize complaints, not to investigate criminal enterprises. The gap between those two functions is the gap between 74 indictments and zero.

Second, even the largest criminal prosecution in the history of moving fraud did not eliminate the fraud. More than 20 fugitives from the 2003 indictments have never been found. The companies were shut down. New companies using the same methods replaced them within months.

Third, the level of interagency effort required to produce Operation Stow Biz, years of FBI investigation, federal prosecutors, grand juries, arrest teams, is not scalable to the thousands of complaints FMCSA receives annually. The question is not whether the government can prosecute moving fraud. It proved in 2003 that it can. The question is whether any agency is willing to sustain that effort.

Twenty-three years of evidence suggests the answer is no. The largest moving fraud prosecution in American history remains the largest because no one has attempted anything comparable since.

If you recognize anyone on the DOT OIG Most Wanted Fugitives list, or have information about their location, contact:

DOT Office of Inspector General: 1-800-424-9071 Or your local police department.

Full fugitive profiles with photographs: oig.dot.gov/wanted-fugitives

If you have been the victim of moving fraud, file a complaint at nccdb.fmcsa.dot.gov or call 1-888-368-7238. You can also report to your state attorney general and submit your story to Trunk at trunk.lorea.ai/submit-story.