A 27-year-old Idaho man will spend 18 months in jail for illegally obtaining some 2,100 DOT registration numbers he planned to sell.
Aaron G. Hynes, of Kuna, Idaho, was sentenced in U.S. District Court, Boise, Idaho, Nov. 8 to 18 months in jail and two years of supervised release for making false statements to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. He was also ordered to pay a $100 special assessment and $32,439 in restitution.
In July 2017, Hynes pleaded guilty to filing a false and fictitious application with FMCSA to receive a DOT registration number, according to a statement from the DOT’s Office of the Inspector General.
The DOT’s statement said:
Hynes solicited assistance from computer programmers to create a program that would automatically fill out at least 10,000 applications for DOT numbers on the FMCSA website, using false and fictitious names, addresses, and telephone numbers of applicants and company officials. His purpose was to fraudulently obtain DOT numbers and sell them to motor carriers for a profit.
In October 2015, Hynes caused to be submitted to the FMCSA, through its website, approximately 2,100 fictitious applications for DOT numbers. The submittal of the applications caused FMCSA to register fictitious applicants and issue approximately 2,100 DOT numbers.
The DOT said Hyne’s fake applications cost the FMCSA $51,389. More than half of that amount was for the time and resources FMSCA spent to identify and deactivate the fraudulently obtained DOT numbers. The rest was to pay for implementation of preventative measures.
