Crawford, West Sentenced in $1.8M FedEx Device Heist

Two men have been sentenced for masterminding a $1.8 million interstate shipping theft ring that hijacked high-value shipments of Verizon and AT&T mobile devices en route through FedEx. Christopher T. Crawford, 32, of Memphis, and Jordan West, 28, of New York City, exploited corporate shipping accounts and insider access to reroute boxes worth thousands per shipment, federal prosecutors revealed.

Crawford, once employed by FedEx during the scheme’s run from 2013 to 2014, used fraudulent corporate shipping accounts to generate labels that overwrote legitimate deliveries. These falsified labels redirected boxes of wireless devices—destined for New York and elsewhere—to accomplices across state lines. Each box contained a small fortune in stolen tech, often exceeding thousands of dollars in retail value.

West served as the operation’s East Coast distributor, coordinating the resale of purloined devices to third-party buyers. He funneled thousands in cash back to Crawford via FedEx itself—using the very carrier they were robbing to deliver illicit profits. In mid-2013, Crawford further deepened the fraud by calling a FedEx vendor center in Tucson, Arizona, from his mobile phone to establish a fake corporate shipping meter account.

Both men knew the devices were stolen. Their actions weren’t opportunistic theft—they were part of a calculated, ongoing conspiracy to exploit logistics vulnerabilities. The scheme ultimately defrauded FedEx and the wireless carriers of $1,812,226.08, a figure that now doubles as the restitution order handed down by the court.

On Thursday, December 15, 2016, U.S. District Judge Jon P. Fowlkes sentenced Crawford to 33 months in federal prison. One day later, West received 18 months behind bars. The sentencing marks the end of a joint investigation that peeled back layers of coordinated fraud across state lines.

The case was investigated by the United States Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Memphis Cargo Theft Task Force. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Damon K. Griffin and Tony Arvin prosecuted the case for the government, underscoring a broader crackdown on organized logistics theft targeting national carriers.

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