GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Human Traffickers Indicted

Massive Case Involves 600 Thai Victims

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: FBI

29January2011 6:40pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: It seemed pretty straightforward: labor recruiters in Thailand approached impoverished rural farm workers—who made around $1,000 (U.S.) annually—and offered jobs on American farms for higher pay.   

Many, hoping to provide a better life for their families, accepted the offer, which was made through an American company called Global Horizons, in the business of recruiting foreign workers to work in the U.S. agricultural industry. But once in the U.S., the Thai workers soon discovered a harsh reality: they worked for little or no pay, and they were held in place with threats and intimidation.  

Eventually, their plight became known to law enforcement, and earlier this month, after a multiagency investigation, two additional defendants—accused of being part of the scheme to hold 600 Thai nationals in forced agricultural labor—were indicted in federal court in Honolulu. They joined six individuals who had been indicted last fall.

Among those indicted? The CEO of Global Horizons, several Global employees, and two Thai labor recruiters.

The latest indictment alleges a conspiracy among those indicted that began in 2001 and ran until 2007. (read full report)

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Teenage Indian girl rescued from a life of slavery

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: The Times Of India

28January2011 11:30amEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE:  NAGPUR: A horror tale of a 17-year-old girl living in slavery and abused for nearly five years by a businessman's family for a mere Rs 7,000 has surfaced in the city on the eve of the Republic Day. The girl was rescued last Thursday by volunteers of Childline, an NGO, and is now undergoing rehabilitation in the state government's Karuna women's shelter home on Katol Road.

The matter is under investigation by the Koradi police who are, however, yet to register an offence.

According to activists of Childline, the girl (name withheld) was virtually pawned with the family of businessman Rajesh Janiani, a resident of Mankapur, some five years ago when she was just 12-years-old. Her mother Sita (name changed on request), a resident of Lashkaribagh, desperately needed money for the treatment of her elder daughter Sunita, then 14, who was later diagnosed with brain tumour. Sita works as domestic help in some houses. Her husband, a habitual alcoholic, does no work. (read full report)