Over dozen 7-Eleven stores raided during immigration crackdown, 9 owners arrested

The owners of fourteen 7-Eleven franchises in New York and Virginia were charged today with identity theft, fraud, conspiracy and harboring illegal aliens.

photo Calvin Teo via wikimedia commons

The nine defendants are accused of having brought over 50 undocumented workers from Pakistan and the Philippines into the country to work in their stores.

 Eight men and one woman have been charged with conspiring to commit wire fraud, stealing identities, and concealing and harboring dozens of illegal immigrants, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement statement.

The workers were equipped with more than 20 identities stolen from U.S. citizens, were housed at properties owned by the store owners and had large portions of their wages stolen by managers, the statement also alleges.

“These defendants ruthlessly exploited their immigrant employees, stealing their wages and requiring them to live in unregulated boarding houses, in effect creating a modern day plantation system,” claimed federal prosecutor Loretta E. Lynch.

ICE agents are said to be executing warrants at as many as 30 other locations throughout the country accused of similar infractions.