Six indicted in huge US scheme | Bangkok Post: news

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Six indicted in huge US scheme

Six recruiters have been accused of luring 400 Thai labourers to the United States and forcing them to work, according to a federal indictment that the FBI has called the largest ever human-trafficking case in US history.

The indictment alleges that four employees of labour recruitment firm Global Horizons Manpower Inc. and two Thailand-based recruiters orchestrated the scheme. It states the recruiters lured the workers to the US with false promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports, failed to honour their employment contracts and threatened to deport them.

Once the labourers arrived in the US starting in May 2004, they were put to work and have since been sent to farms in states including Hawaii, Washington, California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah, according to attorneys and advocates.

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Your comments

  • khon thai

    Discussion 27 : 05/09/2010 at 02:48 AM27

    What digusted me most are the thais abused their own people. Many chinese people also has been abused by their own people as well. they came to work in restaurants stir frying food all days .some even became cripples. the worst of all they can't speak the language so they don't want to make the wave because they came illigally.that is good that some ones act on their behalf. hope it is not going to be escaping tiger inorder to confront crocodile. I wish them well.

  • Michael

    Discussion 26 : 04/09/2010 at 08:13 PM26

    Exploitation of cheap labours in the US is common. It is just that American never tell the true and admits the fact. Thousand of poor Mexicans are smuggled in US at the border each year to works at the farm, factory, etc.. Many are under paid and treated like slave with poor living conditions and no union to protect them. If caught, they the poor Mexicans are in trouble and not the one that hired them.

  • macmundi

    Discussion 25 : 04/09/2010 at 04:10 PM25

    Question is what are Thai embassies doing to protect their people abroad? Labor is a form of export, but definitely not slavery.

  • MEOW MEOW

    Discussion 24 : 04/09/2010 at 02:48 PM24

    Cruelty to humans..... they should go to jail.

  • Hexagradior

    Discussion 23 : 04/09/2010 at 01:41 PM23

    Why do our Thai nationalists who usually bash Farangs in this forum for misbehaving and bringing misfortune to Thailand are so keen to silence?

    And after they wonder why Thais are no more welcomed in many Western countries...

  • same same

    Discussion 22 : 04/09/2010 at 12:41 PM22

    Well its comforting to hear that Thais get scamed
    as well as Farang but will we see the Thai government pay to repatriate these people or will the US tax payer foot the bill.

  • Northman

    Discussion 21 : 04/09/2010 at 12:07 PM21

    Its a good job foreign businesses have to be majority owned and run by Thais then isnt it?

    I wonder who got the "tea" money for these deals?

  • Bang Bang Mancini

    Discussion 20 : 04/09/2010 at 11:59 AM20

    Hi #7 - yes, that five year maximum, which of course will be cut in half after 'being helpful to the police enquiry', less time spent on remand, etc., etc. does seem a tad lenient.

    We'll never know the outcome anyway - by the time this story has reverberated around the press rooms a few more times, only the evil (and they are VERY evil in this case) farangs will be remembered by Somchai Public. The local procurers will slip quietly down the memory hole, probably to a new shell company and a new set of willing customers.

  • james

    Discussion 19 : 04/09/2010 at 11:17 AM19

    I agree with many posts the local convicted Thais should face tougher jail and fine sentences. I hope the government take this every serious and put this type of smuggling to rest.

  • james

    Discussion 18 : 04/09/2010 at 11:13 AM18

    The employers, farm owners, also committed this crime and should be punished and jailed as well. Supply doesn't exist with no demand from USA.

    It is a shame.

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