Federal agents in New York and Virginia raided 7-11 stores today on immigration charges. Fourteen stores were raided earlier today.
FOX News reported:
A group of 7-Eleven store in New York and Virginia were taken into custody by federal authorities Monday as part of a criminal immigrant employment investigation that the Department of Homeland Security is describing as one of the largest in history.
Fourteen stores were raided Monday and nine individuals — eight men and one woman — were indicted on allegations that store owners helped smuggle workers into the U.S. The immigrant workers are believed to be from Pakistan, the Associated Press reports. The New York raids were centered on Long Island.
The nine were 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.
The defendants “not only systematically employed illegal immigrants, they concealed their crimes by raiding the cradle and grave to steal the identities of children and even the dead,” U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.
The Hill has more:
The managers arrested on Monday were charged in an indictment alleging that they committed a string of identity theft crimes, which included fraudulently using the Social Security numbers of dead people and children in order to pay illegal immigrants.
