The Shell Game That's Killing Americans
How a network of trucking companies keeps reincarnating under new names while bodies pile up on our highways
When Alexis Osmani Gonzalez-Companioni fell asleep behind the wheel of his Hope Trans LLC truck on June 28, 2025, and plowed into stopped traffic on I-20 near Terrell, Texas, killing five innocent people, it wasn't just another unforeseen trucking accident. This was a crash.
So why are we back to Hope Trans, LLC or whatever they're calling themselves these days? Well, glad you asked. They did undergo a compliance review on 8/15/2025. (We’ll talk a little more about this later.) Their insurance through National doesn't cancel officially until 10/7/2025, so there's still hope some of us will make it home during the next month with these trucks remaining on the highway.
The crash was the latest carnage in a sophisticated shell game that's been playing out on America's highways for years, one that federal regulators either can't or won't stop. I’ve highlighted the FMCSA system developed and used to track chameleon carriers, but honestly, the private sector and the Genlogs system, I believe, have better solutions.
The 27-year-old driver, a former Cuban Communist Party youth leader who entered the US illegally on a tourist visa and never left, was operating a vehicle for a company that shouldn't have existed. Hope Trans LLC was just the latest incarnation in a network of "chameleon carriers" trucking companies that shut down after fatal crashes only to immediately reappear under new names with the same trucks, same owners, and same deadly practices.
The Muradov Network
Hope Trans LLC didn't just appear out of thin air. It was the third incarnation of a trucking operation run by Aishat Magomedova and her husband, Sarvar Muradov a network responsible for at least eight deaths across multiple states over two years.
Here's how the shell game worked:
Kardan Trucking (2021-2023): The original operation, based in Bluffton, Indiana. In January 2023, a Kardan driver was killed when his truck tipped over on I-80 in Iowa. Less than a month later, another Kardan truck was involved in a 16-vehicle pileup on the same stretch of I-80 that killed two more people. Kardan shut down later that year.
Fiorito Trucking is based in Franklin, Indiana, according to FMCSA records, and that company's registered address is a church that doubles as an event venue. Fiorito Trucking is no longer authorized to operate as an interstate carrier.
Bee Zone Logistics (2023-2024): When Kardan closed, at least a dozen of its trucks, traced by VINs, magically reappeared under Bee Zone Logistics, which Patina Magomedova now operates. When Bee Zone stopped operating, those same trucks moved again. Bee Zone is connected to Sarvar Muradov (Aishat's husband) and uses the same Orlando address as Hope Trans and Kardan Trucking. The primary contact for Kardan Trucking is listed as Naida Magomedova. But that wasn't always the case. Previously, the contact was Sarvar Muradov. The same name associated with Bee Zone Logistics, one of the companies sharing trucks and timelines with Hope Trans LLC
Hope Trans LLC (2024-2025): The same trucks, same owners, new name. By the time Gonzalez-Companioni's truck killed five people in Texas, Hope Trans had racked up 12 reportable crashes since 2021, including four with injuries. On June 2, 2025, four days after the crash, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) record for Hope Trans LLC was updated with significant changes: Primary Officer changed from Aishat Magomedova to Todd August; Email changed from aisha@hopetransllc.com to dispatch@hopetransllc.com; Physical Address moved from Tacoma, WA (a shared workspace) to Orlando, FL (apartment complex).
The federal government watched this entire evolution happen. This was a US Mail Carrier. This isn't the first mail carrier to have issues. Remember Beam Brothers in Mt. Crawford, VA? Probably the only truck case I ever saw federal agents raid and arrest trucking leadership. FMCSA has records showing the identical vehicles moving between companies. They know the same people are behind each iteration, and they did nothing to stop it.
The Cuban Communist Connection
Hope Trans is the gift that keeps on giving. The Hope Trans story gets worse when you dig into who was behind the wheel.
Alexis Osmani Gonzalez-Companioni wasn't just any driver. Before fleeing Cuba for Spain and then the U.S., he was president of the University Student Federation at the Central University of Las Villas and a member of the Provincial Committee of the Young Communist League in Villa Clara.
Photos from his social media show him proudly wearing communist youth congress shirts and receiving awards featuring Fidel Castro's image. His Twitter account was suspended in 2019 for amplifying pro-Castro propaganda with hashtags like #SomosCuba and #SomosContinuidad.
In 2020, he entered the U.S. on an ESTA visa, a 90-day tourist pass available to Spanish citizens. The program explicitly prohibits long-term stays and requires travelers to declare no intention of remaining in the country. Gonzalez-Companioni lied on his application, settled in Miami, and never returned to Cuba.
Federal immigration law bars members of foreign communist parties from entering the U.S. It also prohibits people who lie to obtain visas. Gonzalez-Companioni violated both provisions, yet somehow obtained a Commercial Driver's License and was operating an 18-wheeler on American highways.
How does a communist party official who entered the country illegally get a CDL?
The Forged Documents
The corruption extends beyond immigration fraud.
After the Terrell crash, a Kaufman County grand jury indicted an unnamed Hope Trans official on felony forgery charges related to falsified vehicle registration documents, the "cab cards" that prove a truck's legal right to operate in interstate commerce.
Forging federal transportation documents isn't a paperwork error. It's a deliberate attempt to hide a vehicle's true history and circumvent safety oversight. When chameleon carriers move trucks between companies, falsified cab cards help obscure the trail.
The indictment was later dismissed, which raises more questions than it answers. Was it dismissed for procedural reasons, or did someone make a deal? I requested the court docs from Terrell/Kaufman County. We’ll see.
Federal records get wild.
Hope Trans LLC operated under USDOT 3556385 and MC 1192879 with a safety record that should have triggered immediate shutdown:
12 reportable crashes since 2021 (four with injuries, eight tow-aways)
Equipment out-of-service rate: 34.4% (vs. national average of 22.3%)
Driver violations, including hours-of-service falsification
Failed post-accident drug testing
Operating vehicles without required inspections
Despite this record, FMCSA didn't audit Hope Trans until August 2025, two months after the company killed five people in Texas. The agency finally issued violations for using drivers without drug tests, failing to conduct post-accident alcohol testing, and maintaining a vehicle out-of-service rate of 46.2%. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has proposed an unsatisfactory safety rating for Hope Trans LLC. Keep in mind that compliance reviews and proposed rating downgrades take time to go into effect and that means for the next 60 days, they can continue to operate and could even request a safety upgrade and file a corrective action plan, which could keep them licensed and operating.
Supposedly, Hope Trans had already stopped operating but that is a ploy frequently used by bad carriers to halt investigations. If a fleet is no longer operating, the ability to hold them accountable is limited. Their insurance is in the process of being canceled, and surveillance cameras showed their trucks had vanished from highways by mid-July. The federal action was purely cosmetic, shutting down a company that had already shut itself down.
The Postal Service Connection
Hope Trans was hauling U.S. mail when Gonzalez-Companioni killed five people.
The truck that caused the carnage was contracted through Covenant Logistics to transport postal loads from Georgia to Arizona, a 1,856-mile run that federal regulations require to be handled by team drivers. Gonzalez-Companioni was alone, violating postal service requirements and federal hours-of-service rules.
A 2024 government audit found that postal contractors were involved in 373 crashes between 2018 and 2022, resulting in 89 deaths. The audit revealed the Postal Service "did not always know who was authorized to transport the mail" and "did not track contractor accidents and fatalities."
Translation… The federal government was paying chameleon carriers to haul taxpayer-funded cargo while those same carriers were killing people on highways.
The Shell Game Continues
Even as Hope Trans faced federal shutdown orders, the shell game continued.
GenLogs, a company that tracks truck movements using roadside cameras, spotted Hope Trans vehicles operating in 24 states in the weeks following the fatal Terrell crash. Hope Trans drivers were cited in North Carolina and Colorado for hours-of-service violations even as federal investigators were supposedly cracking down.
"What's most shocking to me is that someone continues to give them loads," said GenLogs CEO Ryan Joyce for CBS News. "Despite a crash that killed five people, freight brokers are still assigning loads to Hope Trans LLC. That's really disappointing."
The company's trucks didn't just disappear, they likely reappeared under yet another name, continuing the cycle that has claimed at least eight lives so far.
Real People, Real Loss
Lost in the bureaucratic failures and corporate shell games are the real victims:
From the Iowa crashes (2023):
Two people killed in the 16-vehicle pileup
One Kardan driver killed in separate crash
From the Texas crash (June 2025):
Zabar McKellar, 52
Krishaun McKellar, 45
Kason McKellar, 16
Billy McKellar, 79
Nicole Gregory, 49
The McKellar family was traveling together when Gonzalez-Companioni's truck destroyed their Ford F-150. A 20-year-old family member survived but remains hospitalized, fighting for her life. A GoFundMe for the family has raised over $105,000 from more than 2,000 donations.
These were grandparents, parents, and children whose lives were cut short by a system that prioritizes corporate profits over highway safety.
The Feds
The most disturbing aspect of this investigation is what federal authorities won't discuss.
Immigration officials won't explain how Gonzalez-Companioni obtained legal work authorization. FMCSA won't explain why they allowed the Muradov network to operate for years despite obvious connections between companies. The Postal Service won't explain why they kept hiring contractors with deadly safety records.
It's not incompetence, it's institutional corruption. Federal agencies know exactly how these networks operate. They have the legal authority to stop them. They choose not to act because shutting down chameleon carriers would require admitting the system is fundamentally broken.
The NTSB is conducting a "safety investigation" that will likely result in extensive but typically meaningless recommendations. The Department of Transportation promises to crack down on "chameleon carriers" without explaining why they haven't been doing that all along. The NTSB has started its efforts, and its reports are usually overly extensive. You can follow their investigation using NTSB docket number HWY25FH010.
The Real Solution
Fixing the chameleon carrier problem isn't complicated. It requires federal agencies to do their jobs.
First, FMCSA must implement real-time tracking of vehicle transfers between companies. When a truck involved in a fatal crash shows up under a new company name, that should trigger an automatic investigation. The technology exists, federal agencies just refuse to use it. After all you can't operate without equipment and equipment transfers. Seems like a no-brainer, right?
Second, immigration authorities have to enforce existing laws barring communist party members and visa fraudsters from obtaining commercial licenses. If federal agencies can't be trusted to vet drivers, they shouldn't be licensing them.
Third, the Postal Service must stop hiring contractors with deadly safety records. If a company kills people hauling mail, they shouldn't get more contracts. Period.
Fourth, FMCSA has to start using its imminent hazard authority to shut down entire networks, not just individual companies. When the same people keep opening new companies after fatal crashes, the problem isn't the company, it's the people behind it.
Most importantly, federal prosecutors have to start treating chameleon carrier networks as the criminal enterprises they are. RICO prosecutions against networks that use multiple corporate shells to avoid safety oversight would end this game overnight.
The Broader Pattern
The Hope Trans network isn't unique. Tomorrow we’re going to talk about The Diamond Freight Death Machine. Similar chameleon operations are running across the country, cycling through corporate names while leaving trails of destruction on American highways.
These networks exploit gaps in federal oversight, immigration enforcement, and corporate liability laws. They count on regulatory agencies being too lazy, too corrupt, or too bureaucratic to connect the dots between crashes and corporate reincarnations.They're usually right. Federal agencies issue press releases about cracking down on unsafe carriers, while the same operators simply change names and keep killing people.
The chameleon carrier problem represents everything wrong with federal transportation safety oversight. Regulators know these networks exist. They have the legal authority to stop them. They have the technology to track them. Instead, they choose to play along with the shell game, issuing meaningless violations after people die and allowing the same operators to start over with new names.
Meanwhile, legitimate trucking companies, the ones that actually invest in safety, training, and compliance, watch chameleon carriers undercut them with artificially low rates enabled by cutting safety corners. It's a system that punishes responsible operators and rewards criminal networks, and it's getting people killed every day.
Federal agencies can keep playing dumb about chameleon carriers, issuing reports and recommendations while the shell game continues. They can keep pretending that shutting down companies after fatal crashes constitutes meaningful enforcement.
Or they can start treating highway safety like it matters.
The Muradov network has killed at least eight people across three corporate identities. Their trucks are probably operating under a fourth name right now, waiting for the next driver to fall asleep, the next family to die, the next federal agency to look the other way.
How many more people have to die before someone in Washington decides this shell game has gone on long enough?
The answer, unfortunately, is more than we want to count.