Originally published at: A Florida Trucking Company Raised $158 Million From 2,000 Investors by Promising 200% Monthly Returns - Here Is Exactly How It Worked and Why Every Small Carrier Needs to Read It - FreightWaves
Sanjay Singh founded Royal Bengal Logistics, Inc. in 2018 in Coral Springs, Florida. He built a website that described a company with 250 employees, a fleet of over 200 semi-trucks and growing, and revenue of $1 million per month. He held annual investor banquets in hotel ballrooms. He posted a video of himself onstage announcing…
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Anyone who remembers the courtroom scene in My Cousin Vinny will recall the moment the witness confidently explains his timeline. He insists only five minutes passed between putting water on the stove and seeing the defendants leave the store. His story sounds precise. It sounds certain.
Then Vinny Gambini asks a small question.
“What were you cooking?”
“Grits.”
At first, the answer seems harmless. But Vinny keeps pressing. How long does it take to cook grits? The witness insists—five minutes. Vinny pauses and tilts his head.
“Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than anyplace else on Earth? Perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits?”
Anyone who has cooked real grits knows the answer. They take twenty minutes. The witness’s timeline collapses the moment basic facts enter the discussion.
That scene comes to mind whenever someone promises investors a 200 percent return in trucking.
The claim may be delivered with confidence. The numbers may sound impressive. But before accepting it, you have to ask the same question Vinny asked.
What kind of grits are we talking about?
In trucking, that translates to a simple economic reality: operating ratios. For decades, the financial performance of U.S. trucking companies has been remarkably consistent. In the regulated era before the 1980 Motor Carrier Act, large carriers often operated with ratios in the low 80s, leaving comfortable profit margins.
After deregulation, competition exploded. Thousands of new carriers entered the market. Rates fell, margins tightened, and operating ratios climbed. By the 1990s many carriers ran in the 90–95 range. In the modern truckload market, operating ratios commonly sit between 95 and 98.
That means most trucking companies keep only a few cents of every revenue dollar after paying for fuel, equipment, insurance, maintenance, and drivers.
These numbers are not controversial. They are the basic physics of the trucking business.
So when someone promises a 200 percent return, the obvious question follows: what operating ratio produces that outcome?
Because if the industry historically operates at 95–98, doubling investors’ money would require margins far beyond anything commonly seen in American trucking.
That doesn’t mean success is impossible. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary math.
Otherwise the story starts sounding suspiciously familiar.
Confident testimony. Precise timelines.
And a kitchen somewhere producing five-minute grits.