The feds have indicted 22 individuals in connection with operating an employment agency in Virginia Beach, VA that recruited workers from Russia and other former Soviet bloc countries through illegal immigration involving fake Visas and sham marriages in order to provide hotels and restaurants at vacation destinations through the United States with cheap labor:
The ring is believed to have generated $11 million in revenue over the past eight years by bringing in immigrant labor to work at hotels, restaurants and railroad yards, including one in Petersburg. The suspected ring leaders moved workers around to jobs they were not authorized to work at, paying the immigrants low wages and withholding rent and taxes. Prosecutors say no employment taxes were paid, however, causing a loss to the government of about $5 million. Of the estimated $11 million generated by the ring, federal authorities said, they have recovered only about $50,000. The rest of the money was transferred to locations in Eastern Europe, prosecutors said.
Viktar Krus, the alleged ringleader, ran the enterprise from his home country of Belarus. At a bond hearing yesterday for several of the defendants Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph E. DePadilla told a magistrate judge that "the organization has not been totally dismantled," and the investigation is ongoing.
The indicted suspects: Piotr Baravik, 27, of Virginia Beach, born in Belarus; Charles Bond, 37, of Virginia Beach, born in the United States; Sheryl Brown, 37, of Virginia Beach, born in Jamaica; Ryan Bulkley, 24, of Richmond, born in the United States; Jekaterina Cerednicenko, a/k/a Katrina Bond, 27 ,of Virginia Beach, born in Latvia; Viktorija Cudnovska, a/k/a Victoria Webb, 27, of Virginia Beach, born in Latvia; Maryia Halushkina, 27, of Virginia Beach, born in Belarus; Vahe Harutyunyan, 34, of Virginia Beach, born in Armenia; Dzmitry Krasautsau, 28, of Virginia Beach, born in Belarus; Viktar Krus, 28, of Virginia Beach, born in Belarus; Katsiaryna Kukharchuk, 23, of Virginia Beach, born in Belarus; Polina Kulesh, 23, of Virginia Beach, born in Kazakhstan; Otis Martin, 48, of Suffolk, born in the United States; Jana Mizakova, 25, of Virginia Beach, born in Slovakia; Anastassiya Nagibina, 23, of Virginia Beach, born in Kazakhstan; Inna Palkova, 22, of Virginia Beach, born in Russia; Patricia Pochtaruk, 53, of Cape Coral, Florida, born in the United States; Ksenia Stekolstsikova, 29, of Virginia Beach, born in Estonia; Janos Tamas, 30, of St. Augustine, Florida, born in Hungary; Gabor Teglasi, 38, of Virginia Beach, born in Hungary; Ivan Ukolov, 25, of Saint Charles, Illinois, born in Russia; and Dana Whitney, 36, of Fort Meyers, Florida, born in the United States.
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