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This article is Part 3 of a Fox News Digital exclusive series investigating trucking fraud, public safety, and assimilation concerns in southwest Ohio. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
OHIO – An influx of Uzbek immigrants and trucking companies, coupled with mounting concerns about roadway safety and alleged fraud, is fueling frustration in southwest Ohio, where residents are speaking out about changes they say have left them feeling unsafe on their roads and increasingly uneasy in their own neighborhoods.
Jane, a resident of southwest Ohio, is one of many who have been affected by the Uzbek influx, which she says ultimately drove her out of a new home she purchased in a southwest Ohio community after just 18 months.
“I have literally been screaming about what has been going on for years, and I’m like somebody needs to take notice of this,” Jane told Fox News Digital.
Jane recounted repeated problems involving neighbors she identified as Uzbek, describing unsupervised children grabbing moving cars, climbing construction equipment, threatening to punch, kick or choke her dog, and taking her child’s bicycle while ignoring demands to return it. She also described children urinating on neighbors’ vehicles, adults slaughtering chickens outdoors in view of her frightened child, and semi-truck cabs obstructing driveways.
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An influx of Uzbek immigrants and trucking companies is fueling frustration in southwest Ohio, where residents are raising concerns about alleged fraud, roadway safety and changes in their neighborhoods. (Fox News Digital/Andrew Mark Miller ; iStock)
Jane described feeling “incredibly uncomfortable” encountering groups of roughly 15 men she identified as Uzbek gathered on the grass between neighboring homes while she was walking her dog.
“They all look at me like I have like 12 freaking heads, like I’m the most disgusting person in the world,” she said.
Jane also described a situation where a group of Uzbek men showed up at her neighbor’s door late at night carrying large bags before being told by the neighbor they had the wrong address. That neighbor then watched them go across the street into a garage and count cash that came from inside those bags.
She estimated calling police roughly 20 times or more and said she felt authorities were unwilling or unable to intervene, leaving her family feeling they had little recourse but to leave. Jane was granted anonymity and is not using her real name due to fear for her family’s safety and possible retribution.
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In nearby Middletown, Fox News Digital visited a site in mid-October that used to be a restaurant where GHOSTOPSUZ, a resident who has been flagging suspicious trucking companies and Uzbek influx to his followers anonymously online, used to frequent every Sunday after Mass with his family as a child.
Today, the building is abandoned and in disarray with smashed-out windows and no sign of life inside, but registered as the active headquarters of a trucking company, UAG Express, with over two dozen violations for infractions including vehicle maintenance, unsafe driving, suspended-CDL and an hours-of-service violation.
“It’s devastating, dude, I mean, it really is,” GHOSTOPSUZ said as he walked around the dilapidated building that had multiple big rigs parked in the back but no sign of any recent activity. The location was recently highlighted by Border Hawk News.
“My daughter plays competitive volleyball, so we’re on these roads that we’re sharing with these people that don’t speak English, don’t understand our laws, can’t read our laws and frankly, I don’t think they care, it’s quite obvious…and it doesn’t show respect for the community that you’re in to do things like this.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to UAG Express, owned by Aziz Ishanov, for comment but did not receive a response.
On Nov. 4, Fox News Digital attended a meeting where dozens of Hamilton Township residents expressed their concerns to the local trustees and told stories of first-hand experiences ranging from alleged trucking fraud to the mosque, to crowded schools, to crime concerns related to the Uzbek community in the area.
“It has been a great place to grow up, now I’m very concerned at this point with what we’re learning about the fraud from these trucking companies, the Uzbek trucking companies, about the funds that they’re using to build the mosque right now. I’m just wondering, how did this get approved in the first place?” One local resident asked.
Residents voiced concerns about a wide variety of issues including Uzbek men learning at women outside gyms, crowded schools, an unsupervised Uzbek child who recently drowned in a local pond, and Uzbek truck drivers offering money to women to get inside their trucks.
One resident said, “Christian values are not compatible with Islamic values; they just simply aren’t, and I don’t like calling a people group out, especially as a Christian, that’s very hard for me to do. But the facts are the facts, and we have to look at the facts. They are not here to assimilate; some are, I’m sure. But I know how they operate.”
“We are drowning,” one resident said while discussing the crowded schools and students who can’t speak English which has stretched resources thin. “We are drowning here, our kids our suffering.”
Local law enforcement has taken action on the trucking safety issue, and in the meeting, Hamilton Township Police Chief Quillan Short unveiled the data from a recent freight fraud crackdown that multiple local agencies coordinated between Oct. 19-23.
That operation resulted in 561 traffic stops, 258 truck inspections, 423 citations and 73 vehicles being placed out of service. Authorities also placed 49 drivers out of service and made 36 arrests, including 31 on charges related to immigration-related offenses, according to data presented by Short.
Hamilton Township Trustee Darryl Cordrey, in a statement to Fox News Digital, called the results of the crackdown “staggering” especially considering it only lasted 5 days.
“Hamilton Township residents have every right to be concerned about unsafe commercial vehicles , unqualified drivers on our roads, and other criminal issues that have stemmed from the substantial increase in commercial trucking operations in Hamilton Township,” Cordrey said. “Our residents should not have to bear the consequences of failures in immigration policy and commercial trucking oversight.”
Cordrey added that the Biden administration’s immigration policies have “contributed to the broader problems we are now confronting” and that he is “fully committed” to doing his part to resolve the issues working alongside local, state, and federal agencies.
Ohio Republican state lawmaker Michelle Teska was present at the meeting as well and has taken action on the issue in the form of a bill to strengthen commercial-driver licensing requirements, including a measure requiring driver examinations to be administered in English.
“We have a community that’s being inundated with people from a certain area and how they got here is through the trucking industry, and they got here because, again, in the state of Ohio, you can get a CDL and a driver’s license in 10 different languages,” Teska told Fox News Digital, adding that she and the Hamilton Township trustees share the frustration and are doing what they can to address it despite many of the issues being rooted at the state and federal level.
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The Islamic Center of Maineville under construction in southwest Ohio. (Fox News Digital)
The federal government has ramped up efforts to crack down on trucking fraud over the past year, and the Department of Transportation and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration have mounted a sweeping crackdown on fraud and safety violations, placing roughly 34,000 drivers out of service for failing basic English-language proficiency requirements, revoking or canceling more than 31,000 illegally issued commercial driver’s licenses, and shutting down or purging nearly 10,000 noncompliant driving schools from the federal registry.
“This is a safety issue,” Teska said. “This is not a partisan issue in any way, shape, or form, but this is a safety issue, and you know we’ve had a rape conviction, a federal human smuggling indictment, a fatal crash where a driver couldn’t communicate with troopers without a translator, and every single one of those things was preventable.”
Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell previously told Fox News Digital that clearly “there’s something going on” within the Uzbek community in southwest Ohio that “warrants at least awareness on the part of law enforcement.”
“I would say hardly a week goes by where we don’t have some felony case involving an Uzbek, it’s pretty frequent at this point,” Fornshell said.
On Friday, the Islamic Center of Maineville, the mosque that has drawn the ire of some in the community, posted on its Telegram channel that it acknowledges the concerns and is hoping to work with the community to resolve them.
“On behalf of the Hamkor Uzbek Cincinnati Association, we recognize that some local residents have concerns and questions about our community. We believe that mutual respect, open communication, and understanding are the best ways to address these issues,” the message said. “Our Uzbek community is willing to listen to local residents, understand their concerns, clear up any misunderstandings, and work together to find practical solutions. We want to build trust, strengthen relationships, and promote unity between the Uzbek community and our neighbors. We believe that respectful dialogue and cooperation, rather than arguments and division, will help us move forward as one community.”
Data from the 2024 Census show that roughly 1,500 people born in Uzbekistan live in Greater Cincinnati, while about 3,800 Uzbekistan-born residents live across Ohio. Uzbek community leaders say the actual population is significantly higher, estimating that roughly 4,000 Uzbek families live in southern Ohio, including U.S.-born children.
“Our community was selected by the Uzbeks because they didn’t think we would push back on their foreign influence,” online researcher Nodawolf, a local resident who has been at the forefront of reporting on alleged trucking fraud over the past year, said via a statement read by an attendee at the trustees meeting. “Here we are. We are here to say that our community will not be exploited for their monetary gain.”
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