Another accused participant in a theft ring involving six trailers of televisions from a Portage warehouse has been arrested, as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have also become involved in the case.
Jasdeep Singh, 31, of Lathrop, California, has posted a $10,000 cash bond after he was picked up on a warrant for theft and conspiracy to theft, which are both Level 5 felonies.
“We are in the process of rounding them up but I am not sure how far we will get because I have heard ICE is involved somehow in their cases,” said Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann in an email.
There are six men with the last name Singh who are charged in Porter County with participating in the scheme. Two others, Lahkwant Singh, 27, and Manpreet Singh, 24, both of California, were arrested earlier. It is unknown if the men are related, as Singh is a common last name in India.
Trucks from JSW Trans, Inc., owned by Harkirat Singh, picked up Vizio television sets from the UNIS Warehouse in Portage for delivery to Sam’s Club warehouses in late December 2024. Three of the deliveries were supposed to be made to Edwardsville, Illinois, two to Shakopee, Minnesota, and one to Oswego, Illinois.
The television sets, valued at $594,754.16, never reached their destination, according to a probable cause statement. So far, investigators haven’t revealed where the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of television sets ended up.
In the case of Jasdeep Singh, he is accused of picking up a load of televisions valued at $82,266 from the UNIS warehouse on Dec. 26 for delivery to the Sam’s Club Warehouse in Shakopee, court records show.
A Flock Safety license plate reading camera tracked the rig in the Higgins/River Road area of Rosemont, Illinois, later that day.
A tracking device in Jasdeep Singh’s vehicle showed that he was in the area of the Shakopee warehouse, but he never entered the facility, court records show.
Fraudulent proof of delivery paperwork was passed along to Omar Raja of GTS Transportation Corp., who had hired JSW Trans, Inc. for the job, court records show.
Harkirat Singh, the owner of JSW Trans, Inc., who has 12 theft and conspiracy charges against him, has yet to be arrested.
It is believed the same players could have been involved in similar-style thefts in other states.
Portage Police Detective Sgt Robert Nichols, in the probable cause statement, said: “I have learned that several of these drivers are being investigated by other agencies around the country for doing the same thing while driving under a different company name while using the same vehicles.”
James Christian of Walmart Global Investigations stated in court papers that Manpreet Singh is suspected of theft of a shipment from Louisville on Oct. 3, 2024. Christian said he forwarded the information to the federal Homeland Security agency.
Jim Woods is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
