Migrant trafficking in Georgia: 21st century slavery

**Winehole23** · 11-29-2021

Modern day slavery in Georgia, USA

For years, dozens of Mexican and Central American laborers were brought to the United States to work on Georgia farms as modern-day slaves, according to a newly unsealed federal indictment.

Now, two dozen accused members and associates of the crime ring that orchestrated the workers’ exploitation are facing a laundry list of felony charges—all thanks to a three-year, multi-agency federal investigation dubbed “Operation Blooming Onion,” a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia said Monday.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office believes Operation Blooming Onion may be one of the country’s largest-ever human trafficking and visa fraud investigations, a spokesperson told VICE News.

The alleged conditions it uncovered were brutal; at least two workers died, and another was allegedly repeatedly kidnapped and raped.

While migrants toiled in Georgia’s fields as contract laborers, some of them dug onions with their bare hands for pennies per bucket, and people threatened them with a gun. Members of the accused human smuggling and labor trafficking operation held onto their passports and do ents to keep them from escaping, the indictment alleges.

Migrant workers were also allegedly charged unlawful fees they could not afford; some were illegally forced to do lawn care, construction, and restaurant work; and others were threatened with violence or deportation, according to the indictment. All the while, many of the workers lived in cramped, dirty conditions, sometimes with little to no food or safe water.

Workers were even unlawfully sold and traded to other conspirators within the crime ring, a so-called “transnational criminal organization”—described as “Patricio TCO” in the indictment—that made more than $200 million as part of the scheme.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypv...-investigation