A shipment of bronze ingots meant to travel from Los Angeles to McAllen, Texas, disappeared after a freight forwarder reportedly handed over the job to a fake carrier. Now, Zurich American Insurance Company is suing the freight forwarding company, TForce Worldwide, Inc., to recover its payout.
The lawsuit, filed on March 18, 2026, in the US District Court for the Central District of California, accuses TForce of ignoring its own safety steps. According to Zurich, TForce was supposed to verify every carrier and confirm identities before allowing cargo to be picked up. But in this case, those rules were allegedly skipped.
Here’s what happened: California Metal X hired TForce in October 2024 to move bronze ingots. TForce listed the shipment publicly and assigned it to someone pretending to be from Global Spedition, a legit motor carrier. However, the person who communicated with TForce didn’t use the verified Global Spedition email in their system. Instead, communications came from a generic Gmail address, which set off red flags that TForce’s policies should have caught.
The imposter used private load details to send a truck to pick up the cargo under Global Spedition’s name. The bronze ingots were taken to a warehouse in Gardena, California, then loaded onto another vehicle and driven off to an unknown spot. The shipment never made it to Texas and has not been found.
Zurich insured the shipment and paid California Metal X $162,824.54 after applying the policy deductible. The cargo’s commercial invoice value was $170,749.58. Now Zurich is trying to get that money back by suing TForce.
The case includes three claims against TForce: responsibility under the Carmack Amendment, breach of contract, and negligence. If the court decides the Carmack Amendment doesn’t apply, the other two claims will be considered. The case is still new, and no decisions have been made yet.
Incidents like this raise a tough question for cargo insurance: when a freight forwarder has rules to prevent fraud but doesn’t follow them, who pays the price? Zurich is making it clear that they believe it shouldn’t be the insurer.
This lawsuit highlights the risks freight companies and insurers face when verification processes are ignored. As the case unfolds, it could set an important example for how such incidents are handled in the future.