Denver Firms Charged With Selling Chinese Forklifts as “Made in USA”
By Heather Willard | KDVR Fox31
DENVER (KDVR) — Two Denver-area companies and three of the businesses’ top executives are facing federal charges for allegedly defrauding the government on sales of forklifts and trying to dodge tariffs on equipment imported to the U.S.
According to a federal grand jury indictment and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs, the two companies involved were Endless Sales Inc. and Octane Forklifts, Inc., which both appear to have addresses on Lima Street in Denver.
The indictment alleges that current company executives Brian Firkins and Jeffrey Blasdel, as well as former executive J.R. Antczak, conspired to import forklifts from China and then conceal the trucks’ foreign origin. Once disguised, the group would sell the fork...
