Thread: Feds Shut Down Construction Scam in Florida

This was way over due we all knew about it for some time.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16646893

Feds: Trio provided uninsured construction crewsBy JAY WEAVER
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
Federal agents on Wednesday dismantled a multimillion-dollar ring accused of illegally supplying hundreds of undocumented immigrants without required workers' compensation insurance to general building contractors during Florida's building boom.

Named in the mail-fraud conspiracy indictment unsealed on Wednesday: accountant Enrique Guevara of Broward County, insurance brokers Alexandra Cordero and Erick Brandon, both of Miami-Dade County. Guevara and Cordero were taken into custody Wednesday.

The ringleader, unindicted co-conspirator Marco A. Sandi, the owner of Broward-based Sandi Construction, Inc., is cooperating with authorities and is expected to be charged in the alleged insurance scam, according to sources familiar with the case.

U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta touted the prosecution -- a first in Florida -- because it illustrates the ''unscrupulous'' motives of a major labor contractor who collected more than $20 million from some 300 general building contractors for construction workers -- without paying their workers' compensation insurance.

Acosta said Sandi Construction profited substantially by avoiding paying $4 million in insurance premiums, and undercut legitimate labor contractors who supply the building industry with workers. He said Sandi supplied uninsured workers to construction projects from Memorial Hospital East in Hollywood to Angler's Condominium in Miami Beach.

''They chose not to compete honestly with other labor contractors,'' Acosta said. ``Instead, they chose to compete by breaking the law.''

Acosta highlighted the alleged scam, investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service, by citing a series of deaths at construction sites from Fort Lauderdale to Miami. But he said none of Sandi's laborers suffered such a fate.

Still, Jeff M. Himmel, assistant special agent in charge of the Labor Department's South Florida office, said that Sandi's ``illegal employment network . . . left workers without any medical coverage.''

Himmel said the problem is epidemic in Florida's construction industry. Himmel said he expected more arrests in the case, which is being prosecuted by assistant U.S. attorneys Jeffrey Tsai and Luis Perez.

My gosh, Just where is it going to end. I have a feeling we have just hit tip of the ice berg.

This was a long time coming. For years, my wages suffered while working as a carpenter in Dade County due to those bottom feeders who employed illegals.

Rockfish: It was bad for you and many others as well. It has been way overdue.