suggested by Joe (long ago but could be today)

Four Amish Men Killed in Crash Caused By Kyrgyzstani Semi-Truck Driver Paroled into US Under Biden

Debra Heine February 5, 2026

A semitruck driven by a Kyrgyzstani national slammed into a van carrying four Amish men in Indiana on Tuesday, killing them all.

Gert Pretorius, 44, was reportedly driving a semi eastbound when he slowed for traffic ahead. Behind him, another semi, a 2022 Freightliner driven by 30-year-old Bekzhan Beishekeev, did not stop.

Instead, the truck reportedly “swerved left, crossed the center line, and struck a westbound Chevrolet van head-on.”

Inside the van were four Amish men from Bryant, Indiana: Henry Eicher (50), his sons, Menno Eicher (25), Paul Eicher (19) and family friend Simon Girod (23).

The three Eichers were pronounced dead at the scene and Girod died later at the hospital, all of them suffering severe blunt force trauma injuries.

A fifth unidentified passenger is reportedly being treated at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne.

The van was driven by Donald Stipp, 55, who underwent surgery Tuesday night and is now listed as stable but in critical condition.

The Stipp family shared a message of appreciation to the community for the prayers, calls, and support during what they described as an unimaginable time. A GoFundMe has been created to help with medical and recovery costs.

Beishekeev and Pretorius were apparently not injured.

“Four Americans were tragically killed and lost their lives this week, yet again, from an illegal alien — an individual who was paroled into the country by the Biden administration, using the CBP One app… that’s not how immigration in this country should work,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated  during the White House press briefing, Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Thursday that Beishekeev  entered the United States through the Biden administration’s CBP One app on December 19, 2023, at the Nogales, Arizona port of entry. He was paroled into the U.S. under Biden’s “humanitarian parole program” and later obtained a commercial driver’s license in Pennsylvania.

Biden’s CBP One cell phone app reportedly allowed 50,000 to 60,000 otherwise inadmissible aliens to enter the United States every month for two years until President Trump terminated the program on day one of his administration.Approximately  350,000 aliens were released into the interior of the country and quickly given work permits under the Biden era program. DHS under Trump repurposed the app into “CBP Home,” which encourages self-deportation.

“Not only was Bekzhan Beishekeev released into our country by the Biden administration using the CBP One app, but he was also given a commercial driver’s license by Governor Shapiro’s Pennsylvania,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “These decisions have had deadly consequences and led to the death of four innocent people in Indiana on Tuesday.”

“It is incredibly dangerous for illegal aliens, who often don’t know our traffic laws or even English, to be operating semi-trucks on America’s roads,” McLaughlin added. “These sanctuary governor’s must stop giving illegal aliens commercial driver’s licenses before another American gets killed.”

Beishekeev  was arrested on a bench warrant related to prior court obligations, not directly for the crash, and was initially held in the Jay County Jail.

He is now in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and will remain in federal custody pending immigration proceedings.

According to Freight Waves  Beishekeev’s truck’s logo indicates that it belongs to Sam Express Inc., a Kyrgyzstani-owned, interstate freight carrier based in Palatine, Illinois.

Sam Express Inc. is linked to a suspected “chameleon carrier network” of trucking companies operating out of the Chicago metropolitan area. Sam Express Inc. is also reportedly registered as a foreign corporation in California.

The company openly displays a Kyrgyzstan phone number on its website and on social media, as well as both American and Kyrgyz flags, Freight Waves noted.

The network has been tied to 91 documented crashes, and one of its entities, Tutash Express 1 LLC, operated under revoked authority while reporting over 128,000 miles driven in 2025.

The evidence points to “an active overseas dispatch operation and a driver recruitment pipeline connecting Kyrgyzstan to trucking operations in the Chicago area,” Freight Waves said.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) calls these types of operations a chameleon carrier network: “multiple authorities sharing equipment, drivers, and management, while maintaining separate DOT numbers so that, when one accumulates too many violations or crashes, they can shift operations to another.”

According to the Government Accountability Office, chameleon carriers are three times more likely to be involved in serious crashes than legitimate operators. From 2005 to 2010, the GAO found that 18% of carriers with chameleon attributes were involved in severe crashes, compared to just 6% of new applicants without those red flags.

The Indiana State Police Critical Incident Reconstruction Team is investigating the crash, with federal scrutiny focusing on the network’s use of shared vehicles and Kyrgyzstani names and recruitment pipelines.

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