Nebraska Cops Bust Semi Carrying $50M in Legal Colorado Pot

0:28This podcast features The Dude and Malcolm.

0:30Malcolm: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a Wednesday edition of What the Truck. The most disheveled I've ever been to start a show. That makes it going to be a great show. I'm Malcolm Harris, man. And I'm joined by my partner in crime, the dude, Michael Vincent. And you're all red, Mike. That's Spartan red. What's up, brother?

0:49The Dude: Spartan red. What the Truck Studios West at 146 Media Studios. I love it. Bringing it to you. Doing it to you in your ear hole.

0:59Malcolm: I don't know if I like that

1:01The Dude: You don't?

1:02Malcolm: I don't know if I like that

1:03The Dude: Parliament Funkadelic? Come on, you don't like Parliament Funkadelic, bro? I mean, I see what you're doing The desired effect is what you get when you improve your interplanetarist funkmanship

1:11Malcolm: Yeah, yeah George Clinton, bro Come on Question for you, do I look like Mr. Potato Head and I want you to be completely honest? No

1:19The Dude: With this mustache? You look like burnt Mr. Potato Head, maybe Okay, okay

1:24Malcolm: I look like, well done Mr. Potato Head

1:28The Dude: maybe well done. No, you don't look like... Why do you think you look like Mr. Potato Head?

1:32Malcolm: My homeboy was like, yo, you cut the beard and you went mustache. I've never done it. I like it. Thanks, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. I saw Jalen Hurts in the GQ.

1:43The Dude: You look a little bit more like Carlton from Fresh Prince.

1:47Malcolm: Okay, okay. I also got Steve Harvey as well. I got Steve Harvey as well.

1:52The Dude: No, I don't see Steve Harvey.

1:54Malcolm: Okay, okay, okay. well i mean you're both you have a mustache that's about it phrase went shack okay i i could see it i could see it i could see it who's your you like shack or or barkley i think barkley's hilarious dude oh man i mean barkley's the funnier one but it's just like shack every time that shack gets got he just holds up his rings and he's like what are you gonna do about it he got got on that big chicken shit yeah he he did get got on that big chicken shit and uh smells like chicken shit here in Chattanooga on the way here to work but it's still the best city in the world uh question do you uh would you consider yourself a stylish guy do you think you got style no no not at all

2:36The Dude: in fact I purposely I purposely go against style no I look like I look like dad I like go out and I'm like where yeah no I don't think I have style at all I think you're a liar because uh you got

2:48Malcolm: style at least today for the next 45 minutes all right because oh on deck we got mr alexander style

2:56The Dude: all right you guys he he's he he's got style he's got style i like this button down do i have style yeah i got i got style on the program for sure he's right there you can't can't deny it can't

3:08Malcolm: deny him man we're gonna get all into it with mr is that zach from saved by the bell is that i mean that's zach morris if i've ever seen that's a handsome fella we're gonna get to him in about 15 or 20 minutes or so. Alright, he's the general manager. I'll be AC Slater for this episode. We're going to be the dynamic duo. You're going to be Mr. Belding. He's a Chattanooga guy, isn't he? Or did I get that wrong? I don't know. Maybe.

3:35The Dude: Golik was a Cleveland guy. Golik was on there for a while. Yeah, he was a Cleveland guy.

3:39Malcolm: We got Alexander Stout. What we're talking about with him today, he's going to join us to talk tariffs. We're getting to what these new raids are actually meaning for trucking. whether the China plus one strategy still makes sense, what nearshoring could do to cross-border freight, and what the real risk is when it talks to, in terms of shifting supply chain, when it isn't moving the goods, it's actually about moving the information that comes with them. All right, so I'm excited to speak with Alex here in about 10 to 15 minutes. But before, you know, we got to pay the bills. That's what we do.

4:10Malcolm: We are not sponsored by Gatorade, but this Gatorade looks very vibrant. I'm about to take a sip of it here momentarily. We are, however, sponsored. Is that a free one? That's a free one. You know, the Gatorade commercials, whenever you started sweating, it was like the red sweat. So if you guys see me sweating, you know, I want that Gatorade sponsorship.

4:29The Dude: Sweating red through that white shirt of yours right there.

4:32Malcolm: Through the white tee with the different color sleeves. All right. Listen, Descartes. All right. They are our sponsor for this episode. They're our presenting sponsor of the month. The team at Descartes is absolutely outstanding. Of course, they're introducing Descartes MacroPoint ELD Plus, a new dual-source tracking capability that combines ELD and mobile app tracking all in one.

4:55The Dude: What?

4:56Malcolm: All right. You can spot discrepancies sooner, capture proof of delivery, and gain greater confidence in every single load. You can learn more about Descartes only at Descartes.com. Thank you guys so much.

5:09The Dude: Do you think I could track my$20 million worth of pot with that?

5:13Malcolm: buddy we got something to talk about here momentarily i saw this one and i was like hey yo let's do it hey you guys heard it from the man himself cooner fleet management solutions is of course our supporting sponsor for the month of september 4 with the truck thank y 'all so much awesome team you guys are very very uh amazing on social media reposting all of our episodes thank y 'all so much and again a truck that's not moving is sadly not making any money every single breakdown lost revenue misloads driver downtime and added pressure on your business that's why fleets across north america trust cooner fleet management solutions for mobile maintenance preventative service dot inspections and nationwide repair support cooner's tailored services help maximize revenue by keeping trucks moving drivers earning and freight right on schedule visit cooner fms.com slash what the truck for your complimentary fleet maintenance review again And that is Cooner Fleet Management Solutions.

6:09The Dude: And it's a 110-100 rule, dude. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Keep the shit maintained, bro. And you make money.

6:17Malcolm: There you go. That's all it is. That is all it is. Boom. There it is. It's that easy. It's that easy. And coming to F3 is going to be that easy because we got the Future of Freight Festival coming up here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And I'm excited to bring it to y 'all. All right. This is going to be October 27th and the 28th. We had a great event yesterday. It was a baby F3 in New York City at the TWA Hotel. And it was exciting, man. We had a lot of different conversations with folks talking all about pricing. So shout out to the events team, Jen, as well as Ashley for what they're doing. It was phenomenal.

6:51Malcolm: Then also, we're going to be able to have a bigger version of that across almost three days. All right. We got brand new things happening, whether it's the Freight Tech 100, whether it's the the dinner prior i mean whether it's these new uh demos that we're going to be looking into the conversations that are going to be had it is going to be a phenomenal all right so i need everybody to get a ticket right now there is a promo code available for you right now it is take 20 all right t-a-k-e 2-0 you can have that promo code and you are able to get 20 off of your ticket of admission and also we are still doing like i want to say a bundle special right now it's a flash special that's available this week only so freightwaves.com has the information for those tickets so make sure you guys are taking full advantage of this time right now it will sell out i just want to let y 'all know all right and there's going to be chattanooga whiskey michael vincent may or may not be there i think he is going to be there if i had to guess october 27th and 28th you can find out all right it is the future of freight festival thank y 'all so much it's going to be a phenomenal time now the moment we have been waiting for let's talk about headlines and thank y 'all so much for that promo uh there's a lot of a lot of stuff going missing and let's start with this first one copper all right so about half a million dollars worth of copper was actually look at that wait

8:20The Dude: wait wait wait all that copper on that truck you wouldn't be able to move that truck if all that copper was on that truck. Move that. Look at that. Look at this. Not that one. I'm talking about Cody's graphic over there.

8:32Malcolm: There's like 120 ,000 pounds of copper on it. Funny, funny. That'd be a walking lick. A suspected carrier impersonation in Illinois sent 586 ,000 copper shipment to a Kentucky warehouse instead of South Carolina. Investigators used Schneider GPS data to locate all six pallets and later tracked the company's stolen equipment in Ohio. All right. So the Cook County Sheriff's Department Commander Michael Ware provided Freight Waves with details about the fictitious pickup theft. The shipment originated in DeKalb, Illinois. It was intended to go to Rock Hill, South Carolina. There's something about Rock Hill that I want to talk to you about.

9:05Malcolm: One of the best football players I've ever seen was out of Rock Hill, South Carolina. He goes by the name of Cordero Patterson. That has evolved for life, by the way.

9:13The Dude: I thought you were going to say Cordelay Jones. No, no.

9:17Malcolm: Cordero Patterson. Cordell Jones was, I mean, he was phenomenal too.

9:22The Dude: but i'll tell you the story about my cordell jones jersey one of these days bro i would love

9:27Malcolm: to hear that in like 60 seconds uh anyway according to the statement from the cook county sheriff's department individuals allegedly use a legitimate motor carrier identity establish contact information to obtain it and then from there it set up kind of like this fictitious like whoop whoop uh did you like that adjective that i used to describe it i i loved it i loved it dude it's fantastic Well, good for them to be able to recover this, but I was just like, man, this is wild. And this happened pretty fast, brother.

10:00The Dude: Hey, dude, put a GPS tracker on your shipment.

10:06The Dude: Solve crime.

10:07Malcolm: It solves crime. If you actually use the technology that is made available to us, you will use this real simple technology that's been around

10:15The Dude: for almost forever now at this point. it is 2026 not 1926 uh you don't have to worry about a lot of stuff here two things make sure you use a geo track some type of tracking on your on your on your equipment and on your on your shipment okay yeah on your on your shipment you got how much money was stolen how much was this worth 586 000 bro 586 000 you could buy a tithe a lot of tives for that like a like i think you're gonna like one and a quarter metric ass loads of them you could oh my

10:52Malcolm: gosh the michael vincent metric system never fails you you know you know what i'm saying and and here's another thing verify that the person might work for schneider

11:06The Dude: i mean oh he said he worked for schneider oh okay dude he did he freaking did i was oh yeah sounds good sounds good security dude

11:20The Dude: here's another rule if you don't think you have a theft problem you do and if you think you have one you do you always have a look what here here's the thing right that this thing told me how did how did the guy know that there was a load how did they know that it was going to rock hill i mean the whole article says this dude walked up said hey i work for schneider i'm here for the copper and they just gave it to him there's your debts to article what

11:46Malcolm: what is that it's a lack of freaking protocol and procedures is what that is that's what the

11:55The Dude: article would lead you to believe and i looked at other articles and none of them are any better hello good guy didn't call up and say hey i'm with schneider you got any copper moving uh with schneider yeah there's one going to rock hill oh yeah okay that's the one that i needed yeah yeah

12:10Malcolm: that's good that's that's the one that's the one that's the one i mean that's what it sounds like

12:16The Dude: right i mean come on man this isn't sophisticated theft and this isn't real hard to figure out get some employees who have half a brain and put some tracking on five hundred thousand dollars worth of freaking copper yeah that's it let's go from south carolina to philadelphia all right i

12:36Malcolm: had a cheesesteak for dinner last night it was fantastic um nice was it was it like real cheese whiz on it or what yeah no no no i mean it was like the melted cheese you know had the yeah that's all right chicken it was a like a multi it was it was good but it wasn't as good as going to philadelphia and getting a cheesesteak and i can buy a lot of cheesesteaks with a bunch of dimes i'm saying i don't know if you can't 30 kicked out i think i might get locked up if i try to uh

13:05The Dude: pay pay for you you taught yeah i don't know any cheesesteak place in philly there where you're gonna whip out a bag of dimes and go oh that's cool they're gonna be like all right sweet they're

13:14Malcolm: gonna look at me and be like malcolm get get the hell out of our establishment and uh yeah They might even throw me in jail. They might even throw me in jail.

13:23The Dude: If you're lucky.

13:27Malcolm: I'll meet Hanif Palmer in jail because this man, y 'all, looking at this next one, is crazy. This is a cargo theft ring. We're going to stay on this topic, all right? All right, stole$1.5 million around Philadelphia targeting parked tractor trailers. All right, here's where it kind of comes through. All right, members hauled away frozen crab legs. Word to Jameis Winston. Television. There's Malcolm. There's Malcolm right there. And newly minted dimes. There's me on the left side. One robbery left. A driver injured. Hanif Palmer received 121 months behind bars for his role. So the crew operated January through July of 2023.

14:06Malcolm: So this is a six-month operation. According to federal prosecutors, thieves approached unattended trailers overnight or struck drivers while they slept. They broke into cargo areas using bolt cutters. participants offered those goods for sale locally. All right, here's where the dime piece comes in, though. Palmer admitted joining in April. So he wasn't even in here for the entire time. He joined this April 1st robbery involving commercial refrigerators. During that crime, participants attacked and injured the driver, according to the Department of Justice. All right, 12 days later, the thieves from that same heist stole more than 230 ,000 worth of dimes.

14:41Malcolm: All right, this is crazy, man. He's also ordered to pay almost$1.1 million in restitution. And then he's going to have three years of supervised release after. All right. So his alias is known as Lou. And this is wild, man. This is wild. His alias is known as Lou? Lou, yeah. So it's not like a – who did we have the other day, Mike? We had somebody else the other day who had a really – was it Barbie? It was something really dope. Love Barbie. It was LaBarbie. It was LaBarbie. LaBarbie. Yeah.

15:19The Dude: And he had some other nicknames too, but LaBarbie was a good one. Yeah. Lou and LaBarbie. Yeah. Yeah. So they got, you know, they were like rolling dimes and trying to cash them in. Did you know that?

15:35Malcolm: They had to be because like, it's just like. No, they were.

15:38The Dude: I looked up other articles on this stuff. They were rolling dimes. You know how mad I would be. pieces of evidence was them rolling like coming in and like turning in 10 grand and dimes and people going this is a little suspicious 10 grand and brand new dimes hmm what what do you all right

15:55Malcolm: say that's me and you all right because he had an accomplice who we actually covered this back in the summer uh in the same rank all right so his name uh correct me if I'm wrong was uh Salahuddin Reddy all right he received a 94 month prison sentence uh and he had two crab leg incidents as well. Crab legs are a delicacy, apparently, Mr. Vincent.

16:16The Dude: Well, yeah, they were a big, big deal in college football a couple years

16:20Malcolm: back, too, down there in Tallahassee, weren't they? All right, that's a Heisman trophy winner to you out of Tallahassee. Thank you very much.

16:27The Dude: That was a big cargo theft there. It's still like a pound and a half of crab legs. Let's get him! Get him, boys!

16:35Malcolm: What do you do if you just get the shipment and you think it's like some Samsung TVs or you think it's some electronics that you You can flip real quick and you open it. And it's a bunch of dimes and crab legs.

16:46The Dude: Well, both of them, yeah, both of them suck. I mean, you get crab legs, you're like, shit, now we got to find a place to keep these things frozen and all that kind of crap. That sucks. Dimes is like, woo-hoo, we got shit dimes. What are we going to do with dimes? I mean, how often can you go to a bank and put in a roll of dimes? I mean, talk about it ever. It's like, this ain't worth it.

17:08Malcolm: I'm trying to think what I would do. it's like if it was quarters that's one thing because like you could go to like these coin star machines right and kind of just go every day to different establishments but like pretty soon people would kind of pick up like hey they're watching pretty soon you're gonna get picked up on a video camera somewhere yeah yeah it would be weird so it's like this one was an automatic like yeah i don't know i don't know it would suck to get caught with that many dimes it would just suck

17:36The Dude: But look, this wasn't a cargo theft ring. This was a street gang that figured out we could steal some shit from misplaced trucks. I agree. I agree. That's what it was. I agree with you. It's not anything sophisticated at all. These guys had some bolt cutters and went, oh, hey, you need some crab legs? Yeah, steal them. Okay. That's what was going on here. this is like if my if my if my son was running a cargo theft

18:08Malcolm: i couldn't agree more this was uh this was amateur hour we're putting yeah this next one we're talking about is not amateur hour folks now michael i know you i don't know i might disagree with you here i don't you're an ohio state buckeye how do you feel about the nebraska corn huskers

18:28The Dude: i have no problem with the nebraska corn huskers yeah i don't have any problem with them i like I used to really, it wasn't a boss. Did boss come from there? I feel like it was the boss Nebraska or was he Oklahoma?

18:41Malcolm: I got to ask him.

18:43The Dude: I got to, he was one of them Midwestern.

18:45Malcolm: It was one of them. It was one of them. Well, I know his nephew, believe it or not. Oh, you do. Yeah. Yeah. His nephew is like one of my best friends. So yeah, I know. I want to say brother, it was Oklahoma.

18:57The Dude: I want to tell you that too, but yeah, it was one of them red and white schools in the Midwest. Yeah. I think it was. yeah no i i no problem with the huskers dude i like the huskers well they're uh they they got

19:08Malcolm: a problem and uh they're quickly cleaning up the streets in nebraska i want to bring this to y 'all's attention all right 50 million dollars in drugs are off the streets in nebraska so i'm gonna take you through it all right they seized nearly 20 000 pounds of drugs worth more than 50 million during a friday september 4th traffic stop so this is right before labor day you guys can see the images right here the discovery followed a commercial vehicle inspection along i-80 in dawson county they found marijuana thc products and different products across 27 pallets dude is that an actual photograph right there yeah i mean it has to be that's not ai by any means we we're bringing the truth all right nebraska state patrol they announced the record seizure monday september 14th the incident began again 8 a.m mile marker 228 the trooper stopped the semi and conducted a commercial vehicle inspection.

19:59Malcolm: During that review, they detected a smell of marijuana inside the trailers. Authorities, again, they saw 5 ,200 pounds of marijuana, about 14 ,000 consisted of THC products. And then there was some - Is it marijuana THC product? I mean, I'm assuming that they're talking about cartridges, if I just had to make my guess. or gummies gummies or edibles yeah yeah so uh william gomez he's 44 years old of virginia he is the driver i know that guy no yeah mr gomez is facing a list of offenses including controlled substance possession and possession with intent to deliver all right wait what was that was that

20:42The Dude: a picture of the gummies that they found inside of it oh take us back to that what was that what

20:47Malcolm: was that? I have no idea what that was. It looked like a gorilla's tune or something. There it is. That has to be... I'm looking at it right now. That's gummies. Yeah, man. I can compare those gummies. Yeah, because they got a little cookies and cream. Shroomies. So they had to be like a shroom-infused gummy that was happening. Yeah, well, they said there was psychosylidans in there. Yeah, yeah. So that's what the rest of the shipment was. So question for you that I was thinking about when i was reading this lay it on me bro so we're just gonna arrest the driver and he's on the hook for a 50 million dollar drug bus or is he gonna tell who he actually works for

21:29The Dude: he probably did i mean it's pretty common that they don't even report who the drug who the carriers were and stuff like that i think yeah because if you notice like almost every one of these things that you see they don't they don't report the carrier any of that no never never I think that's for ongoing investigation, whatever, I think. Or maybe, I don't know what it is for. I think you're right, too. I think you're right, too. But, I mean, here's the situation, right? What's up? Legalization of THC and psychosemons caused a guy to get caught with stuff that is legal in a lot of states. Yeah.

22:05The Dude: There's your headline. $50 million worth of legal substances caught in Nebraska because Nebraska's laws aren't the same as Colorado's. There's your headline. This is not a cargo theft ring. This is not a freaking smuggling ring or any of that kind of bullshit. The guy probably could have said my GPS fucked up and he'd been fine. So would this be legal in California? It's 100 % legal in Colorado where he came from.

22:35Malcolm: damn it is isn't it when you really sit here and think about it no it's 100 i mean it's like

22:42The Dude: you know i had a family member a couple years ago get caught with some pot in a state and the other parent freaked out and i was like you're only pissed off because they didn't they were in colorado or another state where it's completely legal so chill you know you know what i'm saying so i mean that's what it is right i mean like i i don't know how far it was into colorado but hey you know so i mean here's the deal though you've got opportunity for people to get in trouble and and for you know drug trafficking and all this other kind of stuff to be this big headline and all this kind of crap interstate 80 is a huge drug trafficking highway Why?

23:28The Dude: Because we're trafficking drugs on it suddenly? No, because it's not legal in one state, but is in the one that is literally right next door.

23:36Malcolm: For sure. For sure.

23:38The Dude: That's it. So here, stupidity reigns in the United States. Here's an example. There's your headline.

23:47Malcolm: Stupidity reigns in the United States.

23:50The Dude: There's your headline. There's your headline right there.

23:53Malcolm: Oh, man. Let's take you through this last one, because we could...

23:57The Dude: literally be standing next to each other i could be smoking a joint and you couldn't you go to jail and i don't because we're like two inches apart from each other that's how stupid things are okay

24:06Malcolm: that's tough america is a beautiful country but you know it's got some limitations and yeah let's leave it there there you go let's talk man the fmcsa is doing something maybe they've been listening to myself and michael vincent maybe charles gracie they are doing Let's talk about it. All right. 110 plus CDL schools have officially been shut down. There has been a nationwide crackdown, and we've kind of talked about this. But to put it into numbers and want to provide it, 111 entries across 20 states. All right. So this was an August 31st action. It required these affected providers to immediately stop operating at registered entry-level driving training providers.

24:53Malcolm: All right. This includes administering the FMCSA's entry-level driver training curriculum using facilities or vehicles for instruction, conducting behind-the-wheel training, enrolling students, and submitting training certifications through the agency's training provider registry. All right. So the roster provides the most complete accounting to date of the school swept into the emergency action. It contains, again, 84 tied to physical locations in 20 states. And then the remaining are going to actually be online and then four were inactive. So I want to take you all through the states with the most off the top of my head.

25:29Malcolm: I'm not sure if we have a graphic for it, but if we do, cool. If not, that is all good. I will take you through it. California has 11 entries. That was the one that I saw with the most. And then followed up with Pennsylvania, as well as Texas, are going to have 13 apiece. Online was 23. So a lot of fictitious stuff happening online. But the big, big areas were, again, Texas. No! Pennsylvania, thank y 'all boys so much, man. So you guys can see the full list right here and going through it. But Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida with 10, California with 11, really lead the way um i had some questions about this one because i was looking at the states that were affected and i thought that there was going to be different numbers in different places uh for different states some states that i thought would honestly be on the list are the big three that i did not see illinois is nowhere to be found on this list right now which is crazy like i was like

26:26The Dude: okay like this is different i think illegal cdl schools are legal into illinois

26:33Malcolm: Georgia is not on this list which I thought was crazy given Atlanta is very for uh fraudulent behavior I can say it because it's my hometown what yeah it's any nation so I was like okay thought this was weird uh and then uh to be real with you I did not see New York on here I lied to you I did see New York on here it was just very small It was three. Unique New York.

27:01The Dude: Unique New York.

27:02Malcolm: That was the big three I had my eye on, and I was like, okay, this is odd. What did you, whenever you read through this, Mike, what were your thoughts about it, brother?

27:13The Dude: Yeah, it's, we keep reading about more and more schools, right? First of all, after reading all these articles together in succession, Phil is completely owned by Noe. Ooh, say it again. Um, no, he owns Phil.

27:32Malcolm: Oh man.

27:33The Dude: You got, we got to put that in the chat. We got to clip that. He just, he just owns him, man. You got to put that in the chat for the riders, man. Bring them on and let them fight. Let's do it. Hey, a cop accidentally smells marijuana. Take my course. There's journalism. That's journalism. Anyways. Uh, this is, this is real. I mean, this is significant in so many different levels, right? Because it impacts economy and safety and legal and immigration and all kinds of different things come out of this. I mean, this is a story that you could take in 15 different directions and it's important in every single one of them.

28:12The Dude: You know what I'm saying? I mean, this is absolutely insane. This wasn't like they were graduating people that could not speak any English at all.

28:22Malcolm: or read any street signs at all crazy yeah at all crazy and i mean it's it's not like trump came

28:29The Dude: into office or and said look you have to read english this has always been the law it has always

28:35Malcolm: been the law and i know people get up in arms about oh my god president trump this that and the third with some stuff he does which deservedly so i i some criticism is i'm not trying to get

28:44The Dude: political i'm just saying that no no but like my god why are we doing it's not wrong he's not wrong

28:50Malcolm: for for what he is doing with this specific thing if you look at objective 100 you got guys driving

28:58The Dude: on the street you got steel rolling off the side of it okay yeah be off the truck and killing people this this is why these people they don't know what break they don't understand the word break they don't understand the word hazard they don't understand the word emergency stop they

29:13Malcolm: don't understand any of these things they're like and they're graduating through 111 this is a it's

29:19The Dude: 111 schools. There were 5 ,000 drivers were trained by these schools that failed English proficiency. 5 ,000. And they're now in the ecosystem.

29:33The Dude: They're out there in the ecosystem and there's like 10 ,000 more schools out there. The other thing was this. The FMC is cleaning this up. The FMC caused this. Of course they're cleaning it up. They should be cleaning it up while we beat them with rubber hoses for free. boy they did this don't take credit for cleaning up the mess that you caused keep going just get it get it cleaned up and then get somebody in charge there that's going to keep it clean and keep it straight and and and do something and i know i'm not just bitching for as a as a as a private citizen driving on a road with my family down the road right yeah i mean these every death every one of these schools should be on trial for negligence and manslaughter.

30:19The Dude: Because every death that is caused by these people is because these people, these type of people, CDL Mills, stop the crap, man. Stop the crap. Do it real. One more thing on this. It just lights me up, bro, if you can't tell.

30:33Malcolm: No, it lights me up too because there's something that we really didn't even delve into that I want to talk about with this one before we get to Alex. um the online component i want to go away from that model entirely well so now listen listen

30:51The Dude: listen there's there's look most of the schools and legitimate schools use um you know electronics obviously for the the knowledge portion right so there's there's um and that's a test portion right? This has nothing to do with skills. Right. Okay. So studying it somewhere, you can't sit for your CDL license online. Right. But you can study and pass certification online. But once you go and you sit, you can't, you know what I'm saying? There's verifications. There's verifications who are studying. And I mean, it's no different than getting your degree from Phoenix University or something.

31:34Malcolm: No, and I get that. It's like a DeVry or it's like a Purdue University online.

31:38The Dude: I hear you. 100%. So there's some there, but you can't do range work and on-road work and backing and stuff online, obviously. You can't do that, right? And those are the important things. And if you take those tests in English and you come to the school and you have to pass English, the tests at the school physically are in English to pass these things, then I think you're okay. For sure. You know what I'm saying?

32:05Malcolm: It just seems like a bunch of fictitious and like falsified stuff happening. And I think, well, yeah, yeah. Wanting to mitigate me wanting to mitigate those risks. Let's kind of suspend these online programs, but I don't want to take away from the actual real, like the Zeta school that we had the other week, uh, one of the best and biggest in the country doing things the right way. They have an online component and it's like, I don't

32:29The Dude: want to take away from legitimate because they have the they they verify they trust and verify on the backup end of it you can't take the whole course online and once you get there there's verifications while you're doing it online because look there's two-way communications you got you got video you got proof that the person's actually taking it you got time you got all that different stuff and they have to physically come in and eventually finish the rest of the course in person

32:54Malcolm: uh etc so no couldn't agree more you know if you're doing it right you can get around you can

33:00The Dude: get around those things and and make sure that they're they're legit but if you want to just have a cdl school mill so to uh i should say uh you can get around the law too which sucks

33:12Malcolm: to wrap up our headlines again we talked about uh some dimes being stolen we talked about some weed uh some psychedelics we also talked about some copper and we talked about fictitious uh universities when it comes to trucking not universities but you guys know what i'm saying schools cdl schools uh these mills being shut down so you guys can learn more information about this on freightwaves.com and then also the final verdict is that uh michael vincent's taking noy mahoney in six games over phil brink that's what i heard so we will no i'm caught it's a four

33:46The Dude: It's a four-game sweep, dude.

33:47Malcolm: Oh, wow. You're not giving Phil a game. No. I'm giving Phil...

33:51The Dude: Not based on today's results. It's going... I mean, it's going... Today's results? I'm going... There's like you saying, like... Like you saying, like... Like the Chiefs would beat the Broncos in four games... In six games. They'd beat them in four games. They'd sweep them. I've given the evidence from the other night. You know what I'm saying?

34:11Malcolm: Give me Phil Brink in seven. I just think... Phil, it's the quantity. and I understand quality and like Noi when Noi drops you're going to feel it but Phil's going to make sure that you got what you need every time both of them great writers

34:29The Dude: I'm just trying to set this up to get them both in a race at F3 I think we just have them fight it out

34:39Malcolm: we are we are this is writer on writer crime right now to Izzy's point we're trying to put kings against each other

34:45The Dude: Let's make our argument and project it out to them and make them fight, and then they'll go, what are we fighting for? We should be kicking Malcolm and Vincent's ass.

34:51Malcolm: Yeah, they're the ones that are butchering their articles every time they go on with the truck.

34:58The Dude: They're the guys causing all this stuff.

35:01Malcolm: Oh, let's get some style in the building right now. All right, ladies and gentlemen, now bringing the general manager of America's Adventurers now to the stage as we get ready for the triple box. is going to be none other than Mr. Alexander Stahl. Really excited to have Alex on the show. You are officially here on What the Truck. Alex, what's happening, brother? How are you? Welcome.

35:24The Dude: Very well, indeed. Thank you so much, guys. Great to be here. Awesome, man.

35:27Malcolm: Good to have you. Really good to have you. What's up, Alex?

35:34The Dude: This guy's got an interesting past. He can't decide. Yeah, I've been all over the place. He's a nut, man. And he doesn't, I mean, are you like studying nuclear cold fusion or are you redoing a 1970 Range Rover or what? Look, I've got this new thing and I think it's pretty cool. So I did it again today. And I just put everything I could find about you, just stalked you all over the internet and threw you into clunk and said, hey, give, who is this dude? Right. And this is what came out of it here. I think he's got it for him. I think he's got it. I see it right here, man.

36:16Malcolm: This is interesting to say the least. You see it now. So that's him.

36:21The Dude: I'll take that. Look at that. That looks pretty good. That's him. It says he's a young Jay-Z in tailored Oxford wool and Tom Ford black sitting in a restored 1970s Range Rover with the engine grease on his hands and a cello at his feet, reading wind patterns like a competitive sailor reads invisible currents all precision all instinct no waste that's uh that's what claude after the call and this looks pretty cool i'm gonna put this up in my office i think there you go you got to talk to cody he i just provided the inspiration

36:57Malcolm: or claude the inspiration and cody he takes the rest of it um alex before we get started man man. Tell us a little bit about you and your organization. You've done quite a lot, man. And I don't think we have enough time to cover everything you've done, but just high level, who are you? Why are you here today on What the Truck, man?

37:19The Dude: So I come from a pretty diverse background of experience. I can currently, as you guys said, general manager for Venturis Americas. And what we do is logistics data and essentially stitching all of the logistics ecosystems data together and making logistics run smoother. But what led me to this, I studied Chinese at university. I lived in Asia and Chicago when I was younger, worked at Coca-Cola straight out of uni. First job was door-to-door sales in Xiamen, which is a small second-tier city in China. And then I founded... You're selling Coca-Cola? Whoa, whoa, whoa. You were selling Coca-Cola door-to-door in Shaman China?

38:09The Dude: Door-to-door Coca-Cola's name in Shaman China. That was your first job, for real? Why didn't Claude pick up on that? Yeah, there should be a picture of me pulling a rickshaw, which actually did happen. There were some parts of Shaman in my sales room where no cars were allowed, so I'd pull a little wooden rickshaw with Coca-Cola in the back. But then I founded an electric motorcycle company out in Shanghai. And so I was out in greater China for 10 plus years working. Tripled his sales with that electric motorcycle. Didn't have to pull that rickshaw anymore. Tripled his co-sales with that. Yeah, exactly.

38:56The Dude: So I did that and then moved to New York and essentially built finished vehicle operations for a car subscription company called Fin and then joined Venturis and really have moved from the operational side into the data side. And, yeah, really, really enjoying this using operational experience and using my global experience to look at global trade and how we can use data to really improve it, particularly in the sort of chaotic times that we're living in now. You said it, brother. You got quite the story, brother. You got quite the story. So, Ventura, how are you guys? So, you guys are stitching things together between what is it?

39:37The Dude: like integration of different platforms that various companies use that are international and they're different, they're different note or verticals, I would say of their, of their, of their logistics and supply chain. Is that what you're doing? Is that what Ventura does? Yes. So we connect not only internal systems, but also like your whole supply chain ecosystem. So that's trucking companies, intermodal rail, deep sea, marine tracking like maritime deep sea trackers any form of data that's going to enrich your logistics ecosystem and that can make things run smoother we connect them all up and what that really looks like is once everyone's connected to this network you can automate data sharing so if there's a delay on a vessel and that's going to impact this trucker three stages downstream he can be informed immediately.

40:30The Dude: And that means he's not come rocking up at port because someone forgot to give him a phone call. So we're sort of stripping out all of the manual work that comes with rerouting with any form of like change management and just automating data sharing across your ecosystem. And of course, once you've got everyone plugged in, it's not just changes on established lanes, but say suddenly the Suez Canal is a no-go, everyone's connected and you can reroute on your existing areas to bypass that. And you can do that with mouse clicks instead of a week of warms and phone calls and emails and spreadsheets.

41:08Malcolm: That makes sense. Let's talk tariffs for a minute because whenever tariffs are ultimately rolled out, who is kind of absorbing this? I mean, is it past the consumer? Is it going necessarily to somebody else? I mean, what does that process look like for those that are unaware?

41:28The Dude: the short answer is everyone uh absorbs it a bit uh any depending on how price sensitive a market is um you know we we work a lot in automotive um none of these oes want to lose market share and so particularly with foreign oes bringing vehicles into the u.s quite often they've absorbed as much of that cost as they can in order to remain price competitive um of course part of that's going to get passed through to the consumer in the form of prices going up or maybe even just fewer discounts at the dealership or whatever or the retailer and the truth is that when the pressure is on companies are looking to cut costs everywhere so they're going to be a lot more aggressive in pushing down rates playing trucking companies intermodal operators against convinced each other, but they're also going to try and get smarter.

42:24The Dude: How can we be more efficient and how can we nickel and dime a little bit and save some money, maybe by putting it on rail for a portion instead of pure truck or whatever they can do to optimize. So the truth is it percolates through and everyone feels it, I would say. That makes sense. That's a good answer. They do. Talk about, I mean, so you got the technology and visibility, right? Right. And you're looking at all this data, you're linking these things together through the integration. Right. And there's a million different things. Well, there's probably billions of issues that are in that because of formatting issues and scrubbing the data, making it homogenous and being able to interpret it for different platforms and so on and so forth.

43:09The Dude: Right. But how does how do you help or how does an international company react to times like this? Because, you know, one of the things that makes it so difficult is that the direction of the United States changes every two years. People would argue every four because of administration change, but that's not true. It's every time there's midterms, there's a freaking change, right? And so you're looking at, oh, the tariffs are going this way, so we better prepare. And nearshoring is happening and all this kind of stuff. And then November hits it. It's a non-issue. and then the next November it is again.

43:48The Dude: How do you utilize that data to not overreact one way or the other? Because I would argue that a lot of our economic swings up and down and particularly in freight is caused by the fact that we're steering a boat like this instead of, I mean, you've driven a sedan across the Italian Riviera, obviously. Of course, yeah, that comes with the territory. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think you have to smooth the ups and the downs. And what is moving a plant is one thing moving manufacturing, it's a headache, and it takes time. But really, it's not just you're not just moving a plant, you're not just moving, depending on what manufacturing complexity you've got, you're not moving molds to a new country and producing your product there.

44:42The Dude: you're having to move a whole ecosystem that you've built around those plants that's not just the uh the plant it's the trucking it's the rail it's the deep sea partnerships you have it's the roadways that you understand that you know so all of those lanes everything that you understand around your business if you're going to move from China down to Vietnam or move to a different geography you're going to have to relearn everything from scratch and that takes a long time And I think this is where we saw China plus one was that a lot of manufacturers realized that Chinese manufacturing has come on a long way, even in the last decade.

45:19The Dude: And Xi Jinping's China 2025 program, which was by 2025, I want it to be a note of pride when you see made in China on something manufactured, not, oh, this is not going to be good quality. and to a large degree that's happened a lot of manufacturers have have said well we still want to be involved with manufacturing in China but how do we navigate that with this um this administration's view on that and how can we combine our existing very established and um high quality supply chain with some aspect of near shoring or friend shoring so um yeah the The truth is people are not going to make rash decisions based on a tariff that has popped up today, might be knocked down by the Supreme Court tomorrow, might be changed tomorrow.

46:09The Dude: Who knows? So there's an element of holding course for now. But I think that they're seeing the trend is that the mega move towards globalization that we saw for such a long time has started to reverse a little bit. we're going to see administrations continuing with tariffs, even if it's not quite to the same degree. So there's going to have to be an element of friend shoring or near shoring. But that's a process that we need to take time over, do it properly. We don't want to rush this, you know, because if we rush it, we risk breaking everything.

46:45Malcolm: You just answered my question about near shoring because I wanted to understand how you felt. So I want to talk about the information problem. how much of today's supply chain still depends on companies working from different versions of the same information because there's a lot of different things out there that a lot of different people are touching but it all has to funnel in the same direction if you understand what i'm saying 100 yeah and this is the biggest problem is that you have companies

47:12The Dude: massive multinationals i mean names that you would think these guys must be on the latest software running off that Excel spreadsheet paper. It's bonkers. Sometimes the most advanced it gets is an EDI, a sort of creaking old EDI from the 80s that they've still got running because no one's had time to change it. And of course with that, what you end up happening, what you end up seeing is a lot of people operating on different sources of truth. And so you'll have a vessel that has, say it's a immersed container on an msc vessel or whatever it may be you're seeing etas that that vary sometimes two three days depending on which portal you log into and of course then how do you percolate that through to the the trucker who's going to be picking that up from port how does he know he's going to be there on time how do you know what time that's actually going to be ready and what we do is really connect everyone together we give that one connection to each partner, but all of the data that flows through the network gets sort of standardized into a single format.

48:19The Dude: And so what we build is the single source of truth, an ETA that everyone in your network can operate against. Now, is that necessarily going to be bang on perfect? Not always, but at least you have a single shared ETA for everyone and that you can then refine and improve around that if that's still a struggle but at least people aren't all operating off you know different dates different numbers um that they're expecting mike did you show everybody

48:48Malcolm: liner that single source of truth i mean my mouth just dropped i was like who we he's speaking he is speaking today go ahead mike i'm sorry i just had to get that single source of yeah well i mean

48:59The Dude: and i get well i mean and it makes sense because everybody you know the truth is what we we perceive from the data that we've got, right? So if everybody's perceiving the same truth, then everybody's operating on the same playing field. One person doesn't think it's early. Another person thinks it's late. You've got kind of this homogenized, aggregated, educated guess of what reality is telling us, right? And if everybody's working on that, then they're working on the same problem. One person doesn't assume there's a problem. Another go, no, everything's great. We're all good, right? Everybody's looking.

49:35The Dude: that port partner if you've got the port integrated the second you get that gate in at the port um or you know you get the drop off from the uh from the vessel immediately that event hits the network everyone gets informed so if that doesn't agree with the eta you've now got more information that's hit the network everyone now says oh wow okay now we know that something has happened but it's the same for everyone. Everyone's operating off the same paper. So that's where we add a ton of value for sure.

50:08Malcolm: So if you... Go ahead, Mike. No, no, no. Go, brother. I'm sorry.

50:12The Dude: I was just going to ask about latency of data and that type of stuff, lags and that type of thing because it occurs. Because you early, the later you get into the supply chain as your inventory is in motion, theoretically, the more accurate the ETA gets, right? Because there's less nodes that can screw up, right? So statistically, it should get better and better. Events happen and things can go right in a shitter at the gate, right? At delivery, they can, you know, oh my God, that's a load of dimes. It's not copper. Or it's 25 pallets of cocaine instead of, you know, whatever. And then a guy from Schneider goes, oh, wait, sorry, that's mine.

51:03The Dude: Predictability, right? If you got all this link from all this kind of stuff, right? Are you utilizing data from other shipments to smooth out that kind of latency where you're like, you're watching a game and all of a sudden you go, wait a minute. I wanted to jump to live, not watch the, you know, the beginning of this, you know, your buddy calls you and said, Hey, you guys lost and you're like wait it's only the third quarter i've been watching a the latent version of the you know what i'm saying these these things happen so are are you utilizing that type of data like you know you're driving down the street and you're cleaning up the red line on your google map as you're driving if that's ever happened to you that's happened to me before where i'm actually the one providing the data that cleans up a line but you you get what i'm saying how do you guys work through that type of thing as well 100 definitely and i mean there's an element of building a data set that really helps you improve your understanding of your dynamic ETAs.

52:02The Dude: What do things actually look like? Once you have historical data, that's relatively easy to build out. But also the great benefit of having everyone connected and not just relying on a maritime tracker or not just relying on a gate-in event from a warehouse is that actually you see every event, every single granular touch point that happens to a container, a vehicle, a pallet, whatever it may be. And it means that you're constantly updating and informing your whole network where things are. So maybe the maritime track is lagging, but you've now got the gate in at the port and that event hits the network.

52:38The Dude: Everyone knows, right, okay, this is where we're at. So by connecting up as much as we can and building out the whole ecosystem, and that's the ecosystem not only of partners and internal systems but also external data sources we try and give the most granular picture we can of where things are and sometimes that's even gps tracking we pull in that data and ultimately you're going to get the most accurate data of exactly where your stuff is with the gps tracker you know i was listening earlier when you guys were talking about the rising crime more and more containers more and more shipments have got uh, onboard GPS purely for preventing, uh, theft, but we can also tap into that information to give you more granular logistics like ETAs and updates.

53:23The Dude: So yeah, it's really just the data's out there somewhere. Usually you've just got to connect it up and that's what we do.

53:29Malcolm: Connect it up. And that's what you guys do. Alex, thank you so much. You got the style indeed. Looking forward to have you back here on what the truck you are the man, you guys do a great work at Ventura. So just thank you so much for being here on what the truck today brother been a real pleasure thanks so much guys of course of course we'll see you soon and uh thank you guys so much for being here on today's episode as we come to a close let's look at the road ahead before we get out of here for the rest of the day all right because we got that shirt makes your head look big yes uh you think so it's blocky yeah blocky yeah yeah yeah makes your head that's what it is it makes your head look a little bigger than it actually is yeah my head's actually gotten smaller you know It really has.

54:10Malcolm: Road ahead, man, is going to be awesome for Friday. We've got three guests. The doctor is in. Dr. Stefan Heck, you guys have seen this man on the show numerous times. He's joined with Zach Greenberger. We are talking about the merger of Nexar and Naldo. And then Mr. Greg Barry is in here, man. He is the Builders Product Manager of Strategy and Operations at Numeral. Got some great stuff to talk about with Greg. So for Greg, Zach, and Stefan, it is going to be an amazing Friday episode. Make sure you guys like, subscribe, and follow on all channels at FWWhatTheTruck. And for Michael Vincent and myself, it's been real.

54:48Malcolm: It's been fun. It's been real fun. Peace and love. We'll see you on Friday.

54:53The Dude: Peace and love.

55:06We'll be right back.