New Orleans cargo shipping exec gets 18 months in price-fixing case, but feds to push for reduction

New Orleans cargo shipping exec gets 18 months in price-fixing case, but feds to push for reduction
RAMON ANTONIO VARGAS |June 25, 2019 https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/crime_police/article_ff3172...

A Honduran businessman whose company has offices in New Orleans received an 18-month prison sentence on Tuesday for pleading guilty to illegally plotting to raise the cost of cargo shipments to and from the United States.

However, Roberto Dip and his co-defendant — a Kenner man named Jason Handal, given 15 months — will remain out on bond until federal prosecutors file paperwork pushing to reduce their sentences based on unspecified assistance that the pair has provided to investigators, who appear to be probing a wider case.

Though details of that wider case haven’t surfaced publicly, Tuesday’s sentencing hearing at Miami’s federal courthouse brought a five-year-old legal saga one step closer to concluding, Dip's attorney, Joel Denaro, said in a statement.

According to federal agents, Dip and leaders of other shipping companies met in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, in early 2014 to hash out a plan to raise prices for their U.S.-based customers to ship cargo to Honduras and other places in order to keep up with increasing operating costs.

Federal law prohibits such price-fixing deals. However, the feds said, emails among Dip, his employee Handal, and others showed the companies implemented the agreement and kept it in effect until at least early 2015.

One email even suggested that Dip knew the pact was illicit and had warned his employees to avoid leaving anything “in writing” that could be used against them by authorities.

Eventually, the emails and audio recording landed in the possession of an FBI agent in New Orleans who was conducting a larger investigation into so-called collusive agreements among companies dealing in cargo shipments between the U.S. and Honduras.

Officials arrested Dip and Handal — who was represented by attorney Bill Barzee — last summer in Miami, where Dip Shipping Co. also has offices. Prosecutors soon filed charges against the pair.

The case was transferred from New Orleans’ federal courthouse to Miami, where Dip and Handal pleaded guilty in November, setting the stage for Tuesday’s sentencing.

“Mr. Dip is grateful that this problem is closer to a conclusion so that he may concentrate on his family and his business,” Denaro said in a statement Tuesday. “He would like to thank all of his friends and customers that have stood by him. Dip Shipping is a proud family business and continues to provide the best and most affordable service in the industry.”

At the time of his arrest, Dip — a legal U.S. resident — was a city councilman in La Ceiba, Honduras. He was also the president of a La Ceiba-based professional soccer team named Club Deportivo Social Vida.