10 Mass Pike collectors charged with toll theft

The AP is reporting that Massachusetts state police are charging ten current and former toll collectors of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with theft of tolls. A Suffolk District Attorney is quoted as saying that the charges are the result of a seven month long investigation. The toll collectors were taking anything between $20 and $150 per shift. The Boston Globe is reporting the thieves were operating at the harbor tunnel toll plazas - the Sumner and Ted Williams tunnels.

Their major lurk was the old collector dodge of underclassifying vehicles on their registers, and pocketing the difference between the toll they collected - for say a truck - and the car toll.

Dummies, they didn't realize that the toll authority's lane equipment - treadles, light curtains and cameras - provide vehicle classification independent of the class they punched in on their registers.

Anomalies between register and lane data alert any half awake plaza superintendent or auditor to a problem - either the lane equipment is malfunctioning (sometimes the case) or the toll collectors are up to something. Whichever, an investigation is on.

In another scheme the AP reports collectors were fiddling with vehicle separation to get two close spaced vehicles to pass as one, pocketing the toll of the second vehicle. Again alert plaza superintendents and audit staff soon pick up anomalies and then if they put the suspect lanes under surveillance they can generally work out what's going on pretty quickly.

From then on it's a matter of watching and recording to bust all the thieves. Frequently word gets around among collectors that there's a way to take something on the side, and it's several working the same scam.

The authorities then work to build a legal case by putting plainclothes police through the toll lanes in rented trucks and the like to have eye witnesses, while making video and data records of the thieving transactions.

The thieves almost always get caught once they are doing the same scam repeatedly. But they never stop trying.

New York outdid this one in 2000 - 17 arrested

The only larger bust of toll collecting thieves we can recall in covering tolling for 13 years now was at the George Washington Bridge in New York. Early November 2000 seventeen toll collectors were arrested as they came off shift at the Fort Lee toll plaza of the Port Authority New York New Jersey. They had stolen about $500k it was estimated, carrying cash out daily in their clothing. With tolls $4 and up most of the money collected is bills, rather easily concealed and carried on the person.

That investigation too lasted seven months though several months were wasted first.

Bergen County NJ district attorney James Donohue told us that most of the thieves there were hitting a No Class key on their registers in the mistaken belief that this negated the transaction.

Ken Philmus then director tunnels and bridges at the Port Authority told us they first thought the lane equipment was malfunctioning. An accountant who first noticed anomalies attributed them to the axle counting treadles so some weeks of thievery went unnoticed while technicians tried to track down treadle problems. Then they thought the laser profilers that assist in vehicle classification must be generating bad data. They too checked out OK.

Then it dawned on them that the problem was not in the lane equipment but at the toll collectors' registers!

Philmus: “Then when ... we realized we had good data and some bad people, the job was to work out what was happening, and build a case. At first we thought they were taking tolls and classifying vehicles as E-ZPass violators, people who just blew through a mixed-mode lane. But it wasn’t that. It was very simple. They had got the idea that by doing a ‘No class’ on the toll (register) there would be no record of the transaction.” (TOLL ROADS Newsletter #52 December 2000, p15)

Then plaza superintendents started watching individual transactions being done from the administration room overlooking the toll booths. They could see real time collectors misclassifications and bogus transactions as vehicles rolled through. Video surveillance was stepped up and data files were organized to track them.

The thieves were taking an average of $2,500/day out of average daily GWB receipts of $700,000 split approx $400k transponders and $300k cash. So they were pocketing an average just under one percent of the toll plazas’ daily cash receipts. In terms of the equivalent of their salaries they were about on average doubling their incomes, for as long as they got away with it.

The investigative strategy was to let the thievery proceed while closely watching all toll collectors, keeping videotape and records of their thefts, allowing the amounts to accumulate. The thinking was that a shorter surveillance period and quick arrests might miss some of the thieves. And of course letting the thieving continue increased the amounts taken but also the likely jail time.

Philmus: "We did the whole bit. We had undercover people there, video, recordings, and live witnesses. I wasn’t going to wink an eye at this, or quietly let them know and have them leave. I owed it to the good guys to make an example of the bad guys and to really nail them. It was very tough, I tell you. A lot of them were toll collectors I knew personally. I liked most of them. Many I had known them from the time I was manager of the George. We got the inspector-general’s office in and the county police too. We let it go on while we built a really solid case and had the evidence on everyone who was doing it. I was determined we’d get a case which would stick. You have to be able to demonstrate the technology works in court and that all the evidence is in place. We made the arrests there in the admin building as guys came off shift, or as they walked to their cars. It was quite dramatic, and very sad. It is very disappointing when you think these guys are loyal and they betray you like that."

Philmus said that a lot of people in the Port Authority and among the police knew of the investigation but no-one leaked anything: "They (the thieves) were caught completely by surprise. For weeks we had to talk to these guys as if nothing was happening when of course we knew they were stealing our money. What was reassuring too was that we really had the toll system tested. The system is solid. It is better than it has ever been in protecting us against theft. It can’t be beaten."

The top thief was charged with stealing $90k, the average theft was $30k. Most pled guilty, so solid were the cases against them. Most were fulltimers, veterans who'd been there many years.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-06-24