IFCO Senior Managers Indicted For Immigrant Worker Conspiracy
Chaille Brindley

Bad news on the immigration front continues for IFCO Systems North America, the country’s largest pallet recycler. Five managers were recently indicted for conspiring to harbor and transport illegal immigrants from 2004 to 2006. The latest indictments came almost a year after a number of former managers pled guilty to charges related to hiring illegal immigrants. Beyond simply hiring illegal aliens, the U.S. government maintains that IFCO managers set up an elaborate infrastructure to forge documents, recruit, house, transport and provide services for non-authorized workers.

The new charges were based largely on email correspondence between previously convicted managers and their superiors. Government prosecutors continue to work their way through the management of the company and have vowed not to stop until they reach all levels involved in the illegal activity.

Two senior IFCO managers were indicted, Charles Davidson of San Antonio, who was IFCO North America’s director of new market development, and Wendy Mudra of Tampa, human resources manager. Others recently indicted include: managers William Hoskins of Cincinnati and Bryan Bailey of Nashville, and foreman Tomas Soto Castillo of Cincinnati. The charges carry prison terms of up to 15 years and fines of $250,000.

Since the initial raids in April 2006 caused the company to lose much of its workforce, IFCO has mostly recovered according to its latest public financial reports. It is not clear if the latest criminal indictments will cause further harm to the recycling giant. A lot of that may depend on whether or not the government can prove the criminal conduct extends beyond those indicted to this point. If the government could indict the top company officials, the entire corporation could be implicated. In the past, criminal conduct by top officials brought down much bigger companies, such as Enron, WorldCom and Arthur Anderson. One twist to those scenarios is that IFCO managers are accused of crimes that were considered commonplace in some industries before ICE began its crack down in 2006.

Two years ago the pallet industry was stunned when agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted raids against IFCO Systems of North America. The raids resulted in 1,187 foreigners being arrested at IFCO facilities in 26 states. The big surprise was not that there are illegal immigrants working in the pallet industry. It was that the government was actually prepared to do something about it and was going to increase enforcement activities. IFCO raids elevated concerns about the presence of illegal immigrants working in the pallet industry and the need to revisit new hire documentation practices.

IFCO recently stated, “IFCO did not set out as a matter of corporate strategy to hire undocumented workers or to exploit any of our employees. We deny, without equivocation, any allegations or suggestions to the contrary. The government’s allegations regarding certain events that occurred with these individual employees were not part of any company-wide plan, scheme or practice to violate United States immigration law.â€