When they spotted the police, the group scrambled but were caught. Memphis police charged all 12 people — two individuals, Quantrivious Shavers, 25, and Jessie Moore, 37, were each charged as a convicted felon in possession of a handgun, and officers recovered three handguns at the scene along with fentanyl and cocaine.
One of the 12 charged was the semi's driver, Robert Wilson, 56.
The driver said he was paying off a drug debt
Robert Wilson told police he was trading his truck load to pay off a drug debt he owed to one of the other men arrested, and that he'd made a deal for the man to take the shipment as payment for the drugs, WREG reported. A Memphis police affidavit reviewed by FreightWaves quotes the complaint describing Wilson as "trading his load to pay off a drug debt."Wilson told police he owed a drug debt to an orange-shirted man driving a blue SUV. The filing identifies Johnson as the man in the orange shirt driving the blue SUV that Wilson described, but it never names him as Wilson's creditor.
Wilson was working as an independent contractor under Armada Freight's authority, hauling a Koch Foods shipment from Morton, Mississippi, to Swedesboro, New Jersey, the carrier told FreightWaves. He had no permission to distribute any of it. Investigators also reached out to Wilson's employer and to the company that hired it to move the load, WREG reported.
The chicken turned up in three vehicles. Officers found 30 cases in a blue SUV that Shavers ran toward, and 41 boxes in a Cadillac DTS. Marcellous McKinney, 38, allegedly drove a Nissan Armada toward the exit while detectives ran their lights and sirens behind him, and officers found 50 more boxes inside after stopping him. Investigators reported the merchandise matched what came off Wilson's trailer — they recovered 121 boxes and cases of chicken in all. Detectives found Wilson sitting inside the truck. He's charged with theft of property and with evading arrest by vehicle.
Armada owns the tractor and trailer, and it cut Wilson loose as soon as it heard about the arrests, the company told FreightWaves. It recovered its equipment, disposed of what was left of the cargo, filed a claim and notified both the shipment's broker and its insurer.
The Marshals Service valued the pallets at $250,000. Memphis police reported recovering roughly $110,000 in stolen merchandise, and later told FreightWaves the entire shipment carried a $110,000 value.
Armada said the reported conduct violated its policies and its shipment instructions, that it takes the allegations seriously and that it would cooperate with investigators, but it declined to go further while the charges are pending.
