Hard Rock Tampa Washed Millions For ‘Brutal’ Human Trafficking Gang, Feds Say

A violent human trafficking crew smuggled to a greater extent than 100 Mexican and Central American laborers into the US to work inward “brutal conditions” on farms in Georgia, Florida, and Texas, federal prosecutors said this week.

According to a new uncertain federal indictment, the gang up laundered the proceeds of “modern twenty-four hour period slavery” through cash purchases of prop and businesses, and past funneling millions through and through the Hard John Rock Casino Tampa.

In all, 24 defendants, mostly US citizens, are indicted on a litany of offenses. These include human smuggling, fraud, and money laundering. The crew fraudulently used the H2A visa program to achieve its ends.

Federal prosecutors make referred to the aggroup as the “Patricio transnational crook organization” (Patricio TCO).

It’s apparently named for its matriarch, 70-year-old Maria Leticia Patricio, of Nichols, Ga.

Violence and Rape

According to prosecutors, trafficked workers were held inward “cramped, unsanitary quarters and fenced work on camps with little or no more food, limited plumbing, and without safe water.”

At to the lowest degree deuce workers died of because of work conditions. Victims were forced to dig onions with their nude hands and paid 20 cents for for each one pail they harvested. The work party threatened them with guns and force and promised to vote down the victims’ families indorse place if they failed to towage the line.

At least unity dupe was allegedly “repeatedly kidnapped and raped” by unity work party fellow member o'er a stop of 13 months. This unnamed individual also tried to wipe out the victim, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors said this gang fellow member was “aided and abetted” inwards this by defendants Jacques Alexandre Cesar Charles Michael King, the owner of Kings Berry Farm inwards Waycross, Ga, and his associate, Henry M. Stanley Neil McGauley.

The Patricio TCO made around $200 one thousand thousand from its operations, prosecutors said.

Blooming Onion

The interconnected arrests of the 24 suspects in 2020 was the culmination of a six-year investigation, dubbed “Operation Blooming Onion.” This involved the FBI, Homeland Security, the US Department of Labor, and other federal agencies.

The American dreaming is a powerful attracter for needy and heroic people crossways the globe, and where there is need, there is greed from those who will endeavor to exploit these willing workers for their own obscene profits,” said Saint David Estes, Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.

“Thanks to owing(p) process from our jurisprudence enforcement partners, Operation Blooming Onion frees more than 100 individuals from the shackles of modern-day slaveholding and will make accountable those who lay them in chains,” Estes added.

$7.1M inward Casino Winnings

According to the indictment, Patricio TCO members regularly deposited large sums at the Hard Rock Tampa. One member, Delia Ibarra Rojas, bought inward for almost $9.5 gazillion inward cash in from around 2015 to 2020. Another, Juana Ibarra Carillo, deposited $2.7 one thousand thousand over the same period.

Rojas reported winnings of $7.1 zillion during the period, according to prosecutors.

At the time of publication, the Hard John Rock Tampa has not responded to a asking for commentary from Casino.org.

Tribal casinos are required to abide by with the US Treasury’s anti-money laundering (AML) controls. This substance they must data file Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) whenever a customer brings in or takes off to a greater extent than $10,000 in cash within a 24-hour period.

They also need to puddle a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) filing whenever they experience suspicions virtually a transaction.