Fifth person charged in human trafficking operation that brought children from Guatemala to work on Ohio egg farms
A federal grand jury in Cleveland charged a fifth person in a human and labor-trafficking operation that authorities say forced children to work under deplorable conditions at egg farms in Ohio.
Pablo Duran Ramirez, 49, is charged with forced labor and conspiracy and encouraging another person to illegally enter the United States, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was arrested Saturday by U.S. Border Patrol agents while trying to cross the border between Mexico and the United States, the release said.
Aroldo Castillo-Serrano and Conrado Salgado Soto and Ana Angelica Pedro Juan all pleaded guilty for their roles in bringing the workers into the United States illegally, driving them to facilities owned by Trillium Farms and forcing them to live in cramped trailers in Marion County, about two hours southwest of Cleveland.
Castillo-Serrano, Salgado Soto, and Pedro Juan were charged with labor-trafficking conspiracy in 2015. Castillo-Serrano, Salgado Soto and Pedro Juan also face multiple counts of forced labor.
Federal officials said Ramirez’s son, Juan Pablo Duran Jr., also pleaded guilty to encouraging illegal entry into the states.
The trafficking conspiracy began in 2012 when the Ramirez and others brought the workers as young as 14 to the United States under the false premise that they would attend school, prosecutors said.
Eight of the victims were under the age of 18. Two were adults.
The minors were brought to a trailer park in Marion, and were forced to live in broken-down trailers.
They worked 12-hour days on farms in Croton, Mount Victory, Goshen and LaRue for companies that were contracted through Trillium Farms, according to the indictment. The minors cleaned chicken coops, loaded and unloaded crates of chickens, de-beaked chickens and vaccinated chickens.
The defendants threatened workers and their families and withheld money they earned to force them to work, the indictment says.
Source:-Â http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/12/fourth_person_charged_in_human.html
