A modern-day slavery ring has been busted in Georgia where workers were raped, kidnapped and imprisoned in squalid camps, according to pro...
A modern-day slavery ring has been busted in Georgia where workers were raped, kidnapped and imprisoned in squalid camps, according to prosecutors.
The crooks raked in more than $200 million by luring in over 100 desperate migrants from Mexico and Central America to the US, a federal indictment says.
At least two people died in the brutal conditions that saw workers forced to handpick onions at gunpoint for just 20 cents per bucket in sweltering heat, and another was repeatedly kidnapped and raped.
They were kept in squalid camps surrounded by electric fences or cramped living quarters, including dirty trailers with raw sewage leaks.
The migrants also reportedly had their passports and documents taken from them to deter them from escaping.
Two dozen members of the alleged gang have now been indicted on mail fraud, forced labor, money laundering and witness tampering charges following a three-year, multi-agency federal probe known as 'Operation Blooming Onion.'
Only two of the defendants are described as South Georgia business owners - most are contractors and recruiters.
Guest workers harvest a Vidalia onion field in Lyons, Georgia (file photo, June, 2013)
Workers harvests onions in a field in Lyons, Georgia (file photo, June, 2013)
There were essentially three aspects to the alleged human trafficking operation: misusing the H-2A visa program to bring in workers from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras under the pretext of being agricultural workers; abusing and exploiting the workers to make money; and laundering the proceeds through big cash purchases, cashier's checks and a casino.
Investigators have dubbed the gang the 'Patricio TCO' (a transnational criminal organization) after Maria Patricio, a 70-year-old resident of Nicholls, Georgia.
She is accused of filing fraudulent petitions to bring workers into the United States via the country's H-2A work visa program. Patricio has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her, VICE reports.
Under H-2A, a worker's legal status is contingent on remaining under the employment of the party that sponsored their visa. This means they are tied to that sponsor and cannot simply pick up sticks and work for someone else.
Starting in at least 2015, the criminals starting to haul in thousands of workers, allegedly promising them they would be paid under the terms of a contract - typically $10 to $12 per hour and would be provided with transportation, housing and food.
The criminal enterprise would then send dozens of false petitions to the government seeking more than 71,000 laborers for an 'agricultural employer.'
The US then issued 'thousands' of these visas to foreign nationals.
Georgia is second only to Florida for most H-2A workers in the nation.
Once the more than 100 victims were brought into southern Georgia under the program and were kept in cramped, unsanitary quarters in camps with little or no food, limited plumbing and without safe water, according to the indictment.
Migrant workers were also allegedly charged unlawful fees they could not afford, and some were illegally forced to do lawn care, construction, and restaurant work.
Others were threatened with violence or deportation, the indictment states, and they would coerce the workers and witnesses to provide the federal government with 'materially false information' to hide their illegal activities.
Federal officials say the slavery ring extended across southern Georgia where farmers paid the conspirators to provide contract laborers.
Often, they were sold to other members of the crime ring in the southern Georgia counties of Atkinson, Bacon, Coffee, Tattnall, Toombs and Ware. But the illegal activities extended within the Southern, Middle, and Northern Districts of Georgia; the Middle District of Florida; the Southern District of Texas.
The defendants then allegedly laundered the cash by siphoning millions into a casino and through the purchases of land, homes, vehicles, and businesses.
Some of the migrants allegedly worked at Hilltop Packing Company, owned by defendant Stanley McGauley, according to the 50-page indictment
The indictment alleges workers from Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala were forced to live in squalor on the business properties, like the farm and property of Charles King, of Kings Berry Farms in Waycross, Georgia
The indictment also states that between September 2018 and November 2019, a member of the crime ring 'repeatedly raped, kidnapped, and tried to kill Victim 12.'
Those crimes were allegedly 'aided and abetted' by the only two defendants described in the indictment as business owners - Charles King, the owner of Kings Berry Farms, and Stanley McGauley, the owner of Hilltop Packing.
They are now facing charges including mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy, forced labor and forced labor conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and witness tampering.
The U.S. Attorney's Office believes it may be one of the country's largest-ever human trafficking and visa fraud investigations, VICE reports.
The feds opened the investigation into the gang in November 2019, involving Homeland Security Investigations, the Labor Department, the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the FBI.
During the investigation, more than 200 law enforcement officers and federal agents from around the United States convened in the Southern District of Georgia to execute more than 20 federal search warrants at target locations.
When asked about the status of the alleged victims, Barry Paschal, a spokesperson for the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Georgia said: 'Victim'/Witness services staff and NGOs are assisting the rescued victims (approximately 102).
'In specific circumstances, federal law protects victims of crime from deportation,' he added, as U.S. Attorney Estes urged other victims of human trafficking to come forward.
'We're aware of somewhere around 70,000 who have come in under [the H-2A] program fraudulently,' Estes said at a news conference on November 22. 'We have 100 actual victims in our district that we were able to locate.'
David H. Estes, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, speaks during a news conference November 22, 2021
'The American dream is a powerful attraction for destitute and desperate people across the globe, and where there is need, there is greed from those who will attempt to exploit these willing workers for their own obscene profits,' he added.
'Thanks to outstanding work from our law enforcement partners, Operation Blooming Onion frees more than 100 individuals from the shackles of modern-day slavery and will hold accountable those who put them in chains.'
'OCDETF Operation Blooming Onion maximized the expertise of multiple law enforcement agencies and leveraged analytical and coordination support from OCDETF's International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center (IOC-2) to target an international criminal organization engaged in human trafficking and visa fraud,' said OCDETF Director Adam W. Cohen.
'The U.S. Attorney's Office's leadership of this multi-agency law enforcement effort positions us to disrupt and dismantle the operations of transnational criminal networks that pose the greatest threat to our communities and to the Nation.'
In a statement, ICE officials also said Operation Blooming Onion is the first investigation closed under the agency's new 'labor exploitation model,' after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced in October that instead of targeting unauthorized workers in mass raids on workplaces, authorities will take aim at 'exploitative employers,' and businesses that violate labor laws.
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