Thread: Investigation of employment fraud began with welder

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S= ... v=0s3dGNIk

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) - An investigation of a plot to supply undocumented workers to a South Texas oil rig builder apparently began with the arrest of a welder.

A federal grand jury has indicted CPEP and LAM-C with fraudulent employment charges. The companies are behind a firm called Port Fabricators that provided workers to Keppel AmFELS.

The investigation began when a Keppel AmFELS welder was arrested in July 2003 for selling fake documents to an undercover officer. According to affidavits for search warrants, he then told authorities he obtained the documents from another worker at the company.

Affidavits a senior special agent with the Department of Homeland Security say federal officials had received reports since January 2003 indicating AmFELS hired a large number of undocumented workers.

Law enforcement officials then posed as illegal immigrants and bought fraudulent documents as part of their investigation.

Gilberto Elizondo is Keppel AmFELS vice president of human resources. He has said the indictment stemmed from an investigation the company initiated in 2004. Elizondo also says AmFELS has cooperated fully.

Take the profits from how many years that the company has been hiring illegals and build a fence with it. If we did it with ever company that hired illegals we would have the fence built shortly and it would stop the hiring.

How many more thousands of employers are doing this, and profiting heavily ffrom it as well? Yes, take the profits they have earned while employing illegals and we could likely pay for the fence and the national debt as well.

Comments are being left after this article at the source link.
~~~~

Affidavits detail scope of operation against port companies
BY EMMA PEREZ-TREVIÑO — The Brownsville Herald
June 23, 2007 - 11:11PM
Law enforcement officials infiltrated an organization that allegedly provided undocumented immigrants to Keppel Am-FELS in an operation that began several years ago and ended in May with federal indictments against two labor-lease corporations and two former employees. This is according to recently unsealed affidavits for search warrants, which were executed in 2004 at several lease-labor firms operating primarily from Brownsville Navigation District property.

Officials posed as undocumented workers, bought fraudulent documents and learned that an individual was offering jobs to undocumented immigrants if they paid up to $835. An anonymous caller told federal authorities that up to 100 un-documented immigrants were working the night shift at the oil-rig manufacturing company.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Felix Recio unsealed the affidavits and search warrants on June 20, at the request of the U.S. At-torney’s Office. The information in the documents details how the government developed its case.

The two corporations, LAMC and CPEP, which do business as Port Fabricators, have ties to 357th state District Judge Leonel Alejandro. The companies were named in a 15-count indictment in May together with former employees Rolando Villanueva, 31, and Ernesto Casas, 33, of Brownsville.

The corporations, Villanueva and Casas are charged in the plot to provide undocumented workers to AmFELS from 1999 through 2006.

Alejandro is not charged in the alleged plot. He said in a previous interview that he helped start Port Fabricators and that the companies have cooperated with the authorities.

The affidavits signed by Richard A. Perez, senior special agent with the Department of Homeland Security, show that federal officials had received reports since January 2003 indicating that Amfels (as Keppel AmFELS was then known) hired a large number of undocumented immigrants.

The investigation kicked-off when state officials arrested an Amfels welder in July 2003 for selling fake documents to an undercover officer.

The welder said he obtained the documents from a man working at Amfels.

Keppel AmFELS’ Gilberto Elizondo, vice president of human resources, maintained in a statement to The Brownsville Herald on May 30 that the government’s indictment stemmed from an investigation that Keppel initiated in 2004.

Elizondo said the firm has cooperated fully.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/a ... rants.html