A New York man was arrested Thursday on federal charges alleging that he played a key role in an organized scheme to steal cargo shipments from Massachusetts across state lines, including tens of thousands of pounds of snow crab, pallets of blueberries, and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of designer cologne, authorities said.
Romoy Forbes, 31, a Jamaican national living in Deer Park, N.Y., was charged with interstate transportation of stolen goods and conspiracy to commit that offense, US Attorney Leah B. Foley’s office said in a statement.
Forbes was taken into custody in Long Island, N.Y., and is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court in the Eastern District of New York, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston at a later date.
It’s not clear if Forbes has retained an attorney.
The case adds to a recent string of high-value cargo thefts in New England.
In mid-December, a truckload of processed lobster meat valued at about $400,000 disappeared after being picked up from a warehouse in Taunton where it had been slated for delivery to Costco Wholesale locations in Illinois and Minnesota. The shipment never reached those destinations and was later reported missing by the Indiana-based freight company that arranged transport.
Prosecutors allege that in June and July, Forbes and co-conspirators used hacked email accounts of legitimate trucking companies to fraudulently book shipments, intercept the goods, and then arranged for their sale on secondary markets.
On July 15, authorities say, Forbes stole 33,750 pounds of frozen snow crab valued at about $325,000 from a warehouse in Worcester. Instead of delivering the seafood to its intended destination in Jacksonville, Fla., Forbes allegedly loaded it into his own truck and took it to a grocery store business in Queens, N.Y.
Surveillance footage allegedly captured Forbes arriving in a red truck that bore no markings matching the carrier company whose email had been compromised, though the shipper had been sent falsified images of a different, logo-bearing vehicle in advance, prosecutors said.
When the shipper later contacted the legitimate carrier to track the shipment, company employees confirmed their computer system had been hacked and that they had never booked the transport, prosecutors said.
Forbes is also accused of using a similar scheme in June to steal a shipment of blueberries in Winslow Junction, N.J., which he allegedly sold to a contact for about $4,000, according to prosecutors.
Text messages on Forbes’s phone allegedly show him offering images of the fruit to a contact saved as “my customer for everything” and agreeing to sell the stolen produce.
On July 25, he allegedly stole more than $433,000 worth of cologne in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., again using hijacked carrier accounts, prosecutors said.
If convicted, Forbes faces potential sentences of up to 10 years in prison on the interstate transportation charge and up to five years on the conspiracy charge, along with fines.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.
