A 60 Minutes investigation has found that a practice known as “chameleon carriers” — where trucking companies dissolve and re-register under new names to erase their safety records — may be occurring at tens of thousands of commercial trucking companies across the United States.
The practice allows carriers to shed safety violations, crash histories, and federal enforcement actions by obtaining a new Department of Transportation number. The DOT number is the federal ID used to track a carrier’s safety history. When it changes, the history disappears. According to trucking safety consultant Rob Carpenter, the entire process takes about 21 days and $1,000.
How It Works
Carpenter, a 25-year trucking veteran who tracks chameleon operations, said the registration system has no meaningful barriers. “There’s no requirement to own a trucking company that you be an American. You can start it from anywhere in the world. $1,000, pay online, say you are who you say you are, and you’ve got a trucking company,” Carpenter said.
Once a new identity is established, the carrier appears clean to brokers and shippers. “You’ve got no violations. You’ve got no crashes. You’re just a clean carrier to them,” he said. Carpenter estimates 10% to 20% of the roughly 700,000 trucking companies in the United States operate somewhere in the chameleon carrier spectrum. According to data from risk assessment firm Fusable, chameleon carriers are four times more likely to be involved in crashes. They contributed to more than 5,300 truck-related deaths in 2024.
Super Ego Holding
The investigation focused on Super Ego Holding, a network of trucking and leasing companies based in Serbia and the United States. The company is under federal investigation and named in a class action lawsuit filed by more than 800 truckers. Regulators and former employees describe it as one of the most notorious chameleon operations in the country.
Founded by Serbian entrepreneur Aleksandar Mimic, Super Ego began hauling freight in the U.S. seven years ago. The network includes more than two dozen U.S.-based carriers with hubs in Elmhurst, Illinois, and Jacksonville, Florida. Its customers have included Amazon, Walmart, Costco, and the United States Postal Service. According to DOT data, carriers connected to Super Ego logged nearly 15,000 safety violations and 500 accidents in the last two years. In one case, a Super Ego-connected tractor-trailer traveling 72 mph struck a school bus, critically injuring two children.
What Drivers Reported
Daniel Sanchez, a truck driver with eight years of experience, was recruited by Super Ego in 2025. He and six other drivers told investigators that Serbia-based managers regularly deducted hundreds to thousands of dollars from their pay through excessive lease, insurance, and repair fees. The class action lawsuit calls it a scheme to defraud drivers. Sanchez said he regularly finished weeks of driving with nothing — or negative balances.
“I was doing around 600 to 800 miles a day with that company and coming home with zero. Negative, actually,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez also said managers directed him to change DOT numbers on trucks using duct tape. “They’d email you or send documentation with a picture of the new name and DOT number. They’d have me print it out, buy some duct tape, put it on the truck,” he said.
Drivers also reported that managers in Serbia illegally reset electronic logging device clocks after drivers had already hit the legal maximum of 11 hours. Sanchez said he was directed to drive 18-hour stretches. “By the push of a button, somehow somewhere they have control of the app where they can just reset your time,” he said.
A former employee of a Super Ego-affiliated company in Serbia confirmed the practices. He said dispatchers were trained to extract as much money as possible from drivers and that safety was not a consideration. “They are only asking about making money from the driver. They don’t take care about safety standards,” he said. Leaderboards inside the Belgrade office tracked how much each dispatcher deducted from driver pay, with bonuses tied to higher totals. The top dispatcher cut nearly $24,000 — 32% — from drivers’ pay in a single pay period. The whistleblower estimated the company extracted between $1 million and $2 million from drivers per week.
Sanchez lost his job in January following a compliance dispute, along with his truck and the $35,000 he had contributed toward owning it.
The Regulatory Gap
Only 350 investigators at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration oversee all 700,000 trucking companies on U.S. roads. FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs confirmed Super Ego is among the agency’s top ten priority companies under investigation. The agency is attempting to hire 40 additional investigators and plans to replace a registration system that is approximately 40 years old. “We have a front door problem, meaning we need to stop this before they actually get into the system,” Barrs said.
Super Ego Holding denies any wrongdoing. Company lawyers said it is a leasing company, not a trucking firm, and is not responsible for the actions of affiliated carriers and drivers.
Investigation by 60 Minutes.
📸 Image(s) used under fair use for news reporting.
