In what is shaping up to be one of the largest criminal immigrant employment investigations in the history of the U.S. Justice Department 14 7-Eleven stores in New York and Virginia were seized by federal authorities while an additional 40 franchises were still being investigated, according to The New York Times.
Nine people have been charged so far for operating what U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch is calling a "modern-day plantation system" where franchise owners used stolen social security numbers to hide the illegal immigrants they were employing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
"Immigrants were routinely forced, under the threat of job loss or deportation, to work upwards of 100 hours a week," Lynch said.
The defendants allegedly employed over 50 illegal immigrants and furnished them with identities stolen from children and the deceased, housed them and charged them rent in buildings they owned and stole a huge percentage of their wages, according to The New York Times.
"From their 7-Eleven stores the defendants dispensed wire fraud and identity theft, along with Slurpees and hot dogs," Lynch said. "In bedroom communities across Long Island and Virginia, the defendants not only systematically employed illegal immigrants but concealed their crimes by raiding the cradle and grave to steal the identity of children and even the dead."
The act of employing illegal immigrants and stealing identities to conceal the fact may be the main crime that the defendants are charged with but Lynch was sure to point out that the defendants also took advantage of their employees and treated them in an inhumane manner, according to ABC News.
"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," Lynch said.
Margaret Chabris, director of Corporate Communications for 7-Eleven, told ABC News that the convenience store chain is cooperating with the investigation.
"7-Eleven is aware of today's activity and has been cooperating with federal authorities during their investigation," Chabris said. "We will have no further comment until we learn more."
Federal authorities have put an emphasis on prosecuting employers who have been stealing identities in order to hide the employment of illegal immigrants. James Hayes, the head of New York's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, told the New York Daily News that charges have been brought up against 500 employers.
"There's real teeth to these laws, and we're using them now more than ever before," Hayes said.
