• What Happened: Nearly 700 trucking companies are registered to one small building in Signal Hill, California, with roughly 500 sharing the same email address and phone number.
  • Why It Matters: The building sits next to the Port of Long Beach, the second largest container port in America, and these shell companies carry crash rates 80% higher than legitimate carriers.
  • Bottom Line: Authorities were notified and did nothing, with the FMCSA saying only that they were "familiar with complaints."

There is a small, quiet building in Signal Hill, California that has a sign out front reading "No Trucks Allowed." According to federal records, it is also the headquarters of nearly 700 trucking companies.

A WFAA investigation uncovered that roughly 700 freight carriers are registered to this single address in Los Angeles County, with approximately 500 of those companies sharing the exact same email address and phone number. Signal Hill sits right next to Long Beach, home to the second largest container port in America. If you were going to build a network of ghost trucking companies designed to move money or commit freight fraud near a major port, you could not pick a better spot.

Industry experts are not mincing words about what this is. Dale Prax of Freight Validate told investigators these are "hidden carriers" and bad actors deliberately set up to evade Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration scrutiny. The data backs that up. Carriers operating this way have crash rates 80 percent higher than legitimate companies.

The fraud does not stop at paperwork. These shell companies operate as double brokers and fraudulent entities, inserting themselves into legitimate supply chains and creating dangerous conditions on American roads.

Here is the part that should make every taxpaying American furious. This was reported to authorities. The FMCSA confirmed they were "familiar with complaints" about the address. Familiar. That was their response to 700 companies operating out of a building that does not allow trucks.

California had the information. California did nothing. Meanwhile the Port of Long Beach keeps humming along right next door.

WFAA found similar fraudulent registrations happening in Texas as well. This is not a California problem. It is a national one, and nobody in charge seems to care.