JPMorgan Chase profited from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking, suit says
Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan,” the lawsuit states.
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A criminal enterprise is a group or organization that engages in illegal activities for financial gain. These activities may include drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking, prostitution, or other forms of organized crime. Criminal enterprises can be highly structured and well-organized, with a hierarchy of leaders, members, and associates, and can operate across national borders.
Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JPMorgan,” the lawsuit states.
Tampa, FL – Bladimir Moreno, 55, was sentenced for leading a federal racketeering and forced labor conspiracy that victimized Mexican H-2A agricultural workers in the United States between 2015 and 2017. U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Edward Honeywell of the Middle District of Florida sentenced Moreno to 118 months in prison with three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay over $175,000 in restitution to the victims.
Moreno, the owner of Los Villatoros Harvesting LLC (LVH), the labor contracting company that employed the workers, was charged in September 2021 and pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and conspiracy to commit forced labor. Two of Moreno’s co-defendants previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy under RICO, and a third, Guadalupe Mendes, 45, pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct a federal investigation. They were sentenced in October 2022. Rodas, a citizen of Mexico, who worked for LVH as a recruiter, manager and supervisor, received 41 months in prison. Gamez, a U.S. citizen, who worked for LVH as a bookkeeper, manager and supervisor, received 37 months in prison. Mendes, a U.S. citizen, who worked for LVH as a manager and supervisor, received eight months of home detention and a $5,500 fine to be paid over 24 months of supervised release.
“Human trafficking, including forced labor campaigns that exploit vulnerable workers, is unlawful, immoral and inhumane,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This defendant abused his power as a business owner to capitalize on the victims’ vulnerabilities and immigration status, luring those seeking a better quality of life with false promises of lawful work paying a fair wage. The defendant forced Mexican agricultural workers to labor under inhumane conditions, confiscated their passports, imposed exorbitant fees and debts, and threatened them with deportation or false arrest. The Department of Justice is committed to seeking justice for survivors of forced labor campaigns, holding perpetrators accountable and stripping wrongdoers of their illegal profits.”
“Forcing individuals to work against their will using abusive and coercive tactics is not only unconscionable but illegal,” said U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg for the Middle District of Florida. “We will continue to work with our task force partners to combat human trafficking in all its forms, including prosecuting those who exploit vulnerable workers.”
According to court documents, Moreno owned, operated and managed LVH — a farm labor contracting company that brought large numbers of temporary, seasonal Mexican workers into the United States on H-2A agricultural visas — as a criminal enterprise. Moreno compelled victims to work in Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and North Carolina, and he engaged in a pattern of other racketeering activity that included visa fraud and fraud in foreign labor contracting, among other things. In order to facilitate the enterprise, Moreno made false statements in applications to federal agencies for the company to be granted temporary, H-2A agricultural workers. Moreno and his co-conspirators also made false promises to the Mexican farm workers themselves to encourage them to work for LVH and then charged them inflated sums to come into the United States on H-2A visas.
Once the immigrants arrived in the United States, Moreno and his co-conspirators coerced over a dozen of them into providing long hours of physically demanding agricultural labor, six to seven days a week, for de minimis pay. Moreno and his co-conspirators used various forms of coercion, including imposing debts on the workers; confiscating their passports; subjecting them to crowded, unsanitary and degrading living conditions; harboring them in the United States after their visas had expired; and threatening them with arrest and deportation if they failed to comply with Moreno’s and his co-conspirators’ demands. Later, in an attempt to conceal the criminal enterprise from federal investigators, Moreno created and provided to investigators fraudulent records that contained falsified information about the workers’ pay and hours, and repeatedly made false statements to federal investigators.
Assistant Attorney General Clarke, U.S. Attorney Handberg and Acting Special Agent in Charge DeWitt announced the sentence.
The Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. The Task Force received assistance from the Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, the Department of State Diplomatic Security Service, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Colorado Legal Services Migrant Farm Worker Division, Legal Aid Services of Oregon Farmworker Program and Indiana Legal Services Worker Rights and Protection Project.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ilyssa Spergel for the Middle District of Florida and Trial Attorneys Avner Shapiro, Maryam Zhuravitsky and Matthew Thiman of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section are prosecuting the case.
Anyone who has information about human trafficking should report that information to the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free at 1-888-373-7888, which is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For more information about human trafficking, please visit www.humantraffickinghotline.org. Information on the Department of Justice’s efforts to combat human trafficking can be found at www.justice.gov/humantrafficking.
(The Center Square) – A letter in possession of a woman rescued from a sex trafficking ring in Texas says it takes roughly five to 13 years to buy freedom. Law enforcement officers have told The Center Square it can take longer if the victims are sold more than once and owe multiple debts. The…
(The Center Square) – A letter held by a woman rescued from a Texas sex trafficking ring says it takes anywhere from five to 13 years to buy her freedom. Police officials have told The Center Square it may take longer if victims are sold more than once and have multiple debts. The letter was…
This was revealed by experts at a three-day media training workshop on “Countering Trafficking In Persons, (CTIP),” organised by Network Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Child Labour (NACTAL) in collaboration with USAID for journalists from Cross River and seven other states of the federation and Abuja. Held in Benin, Edo State, the workshop ended on…
The Kern County Human Trafficking Task Force has teamed with Ascend Real Estate and Property Management to host a holiday donation drive benefitting the Kern County Family Justice Center Foundation by providing clothing, personal hygiene toiletries, and other necessary comfort items for local victims of human trafficking crimes. All too often, when men, women, and…
The Kern County Human Trafficking Task Force is hosting an event to help victims and the Kern County Family Justice Center Foundation. The first Race Against …
This article is reprinted from its original location at Hope for Justice‘s website. It was pulled from their RSS feed for your education. Visit Hope for Justice’s news page by clicking here. Hope for Justice, is working on an ambitious technology pilot that could allow anonymised data about the survivors we help to be shared…
Editor’s note: we are a nonpartisan group and are presenting this as a news article for you to use as part of your research. House Republicans announced an investigation into President Joe Biden‘s family, including his son Hunter Biden, on Thursday just a day after winning control of the lower chamber of Congress in the…
Federal prosecutors said the fight against human trafficking, a crime that harms some of the most vulnerable members of society, counts among their highest priorities. “We are committed to vindicating the rights of human trafficking crime victims by bringing their traffickers to justice and working to ensure that survivors have access to restitution, services and…
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