Report finds truck license fraud; several drivers used false address

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Several people who obtained commercial driver's licenses from a southern Missouri trucking school gave false home addresses in Missouri, and state officials acknowledge they currently have no way to stop the practice.

An analysis by The Kansas City Star found numerous examples of multiple drivers, all licensed through the South Central Career Center Truck Driver Training School in West Plains, claiming to live at the same Missouri addresses.

For example, at least a dozen people who got the licenses reported they lived at the same central Kansas City address. A small auto-sales business is located at the address, and the owner said he has never heard of the drivers.

Federal law requires that drivers have a commercial driver's license, or CDL, to operate tractor-trailers, large trucks or school buses. But lax licensing rules and a lack of oversight make it relatively easy to get the licenses, industry officials said.

"Just about anybody can walk in the door and get a CDL," said Todd Spencer of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. "If you have the skills to avoid a few cones, even if you're not very good, you can find a place where somebody is likely to pass you."

Drivers also can often overcome state regulations because many states allow drivers to exchange their license for one in another state without retesting.

One of the people who obtained a license through South Central by falsely claiming to live in Kansas City was Hussein Osman, whose tractor-trailer collided with an Oklahoma state trooper's car in October, killing both drivers, the Star reported. Osman, 25, actually lived in Ohio.

Using a false address to obtain a commercial driver's license is a class A misdemeanor in Missouri.

A 2005 federal Department of Transportation report found that CDL fraud schemes had been investigated in 23 states during the last five years.

Maura Browning, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Revenue, which oversees driver's licenses, said state officials have identified 1,958 drivers since July 2005 with licenses from schools under state or federal investigation. The state has ordered each to take the test again. Of those, she said, 724 have left Missouri.

Federal transportation records show that, on average, 40,000 commercial driver's licenses are issued every month nationwide and 123,000 are transferred between states annually.

The Star's analysis found that about one-third of people who obtained CDLs from South Central since May 2004 exchanged their Missouri licenses for ones in other states.

Federal transportation officials have developed a program to help states combat CDL fraud, but it's up to the states to implement the program.

Browning said Missouri has no mechanism to detect if an address appeared repeatedly, as apparently happened at South Central.

"We could come up with a way to run a report that would sort by address, but we're talking about hundreds of thousands of records," she said. "We don't have the resources to predict every way a person may commit fraud."

Federal officials have charged 15 people connected to the South Central school with conspiring to help more than 70 Somali and Bosnian nationals illegally obtain commercial licenses. As many as 300 people may have obtained licenses fraudulently, and many didn't take a written or competency exam, federal officials said.

Federal investigators say they have found no links to terrorism in the South Central case.

Spurred by the South Central allegations, Missouri lawmakers enacted legislation last year that requires the general public to be tested through the Missouri State Highway Patrol rather than through third-party testers.