An Orlando trucking and freight broker has pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering after admitting he collected more than $1 million from the U.S. Postal Service for bulk mail deliveries that never happened. Khayyam Arif Oglu Farajov, an Azerbaijani national who ran Talishco LLC out of a South Kirkman Road address, won hundreds of USPS bulk mail contracts but routinely failed to send the trucks required to fulfill them.
A Former Trucker Turned Freight Broker
According to USAO Middle Florida
, Farajov pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering tied to a scheme in which he fraudulently obtained payments from the postal service by marking loads as delivered that were never actually driven. Farajov enrolled Talishco in USPS's Freight Auction program in May 2022, according to the
Department of Justice
. A federal grand jury in Orlando had originally indicted him in March on five counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering before he reached the plea deal this month.
Each count of wire fraud and money laundering carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in federal prison, per the Department of Justice, though actual sentences are ultimately determined by a judge applying federal sentencing guidelines. Between June 2022 and January 2023, Farajov repeatedly told USPS staff he had lost contact with his drivers or that trucks were running behind schedule, excuses that forced the postal service to reassign the bulk mail routes to other carriers just to keep the mail moving.
Faking Deliveries to Trigger Automatic Payments
Once USPS had reassigned those unfulfilled routes to secondary carriers, Farajov logged into the Freight Auction portal himself and manually entered fake delivery details, triggering automated payments that eventually totaled over $1 million, the Justice Department's account states. The portal's design meant payments were issued automatically the moment delivery status was entered, with no truck ever needing to actually complete the route.
From there, Farajov funneled the fraudulent proceeds through bank accounts belonging to shell companies he owned before consolidating the money into two personal investment brokerage accounts, which he used to trade in the stock market. Federal law enforcement later traced and seized those brokerage accounts ahead of sentencing, the Department of Justice said.
A System With Known Weaknesses
The vulnerabilities Farajov exploited were not a secret inside the Postal Service. An August 2024 audit by the USPS Office of Inspector General found that the Freight Auction program lacked effective internal controls over trip payments, proof-of-delivery documentation, and automated safeguards against inaccurate supplier payments, covering the exact fiscal years during which Farajov's scheme played out. The inspector general's review evaluated system performance across fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the same window USPS says the fraud unfolded.
The Postal Service's highway contract transportation is a primary way mail moves between regional processing facilities and local post offices nationwide.
Restitution and What Comes Next
Under his plea agreement, Farajov agreed to forfeit his seized brokerage accounts and pay $993,979 in restitution directly to the U.S. Postal Service, the Department of Justice said. The case was investigated by the USPS Office of Inspector General.
What remains unresolved is how long a federal judge will ultimately sentence Farajov to serve, and whether USPS has since rolled out updated automated validation tools in the Freight Auction portal to prevent similar manual delivery overrides going forward.
