Summary

Quick Transportation, Inc., a trucking company operating out of Michigan City, IN and Stockton, CA, was fined $100,000 and put on 36 months probation by a U.S. District Court judge in Sacramento for unlawfully transporting compressed nitrogen military decoy flares. The flares can become dangerous projectiles under extreme heat or pressure and must be shipped under constant surveillance. Although Quick received a bill of lading identifying the shipment as hazardous and specifying the need for surveillance, the company created new paperwork that deliberately omitted the hazard. Quick then trucked the shipment to an intermediary firm, which delivered the container to Union Pacific Railroad for transport to California. The flares were discovered when the train derailed near Lodi, CA in January 1998. The decoys did not explode. OIG investigated the case jointly with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, FBI, FRA, FMCSA, and RSPA.