Informants, Arrested Employees Led To Immigration Raid
By Ron Wood THE MORNING NEWS
FAYETTEVILLE -- Information from confidential informants and a series of arrests involving employees of Acambaro led federal officials to Arturo and Silvia Reyes, according to affidavits unsealed Friday. The husband and wife operate the Acambaro restaurant chain, Garibaldi's Mexican Restaurant and Garcia's Distributor, according to federal officials. They're charged with harboring illegal immigrants for financial gain and knowingly hiring them to work at the restaurants and food distribution company. Documents further indicate the alleged unlawful activity included identity theft, possession and use of counterfeit identity documents, employment eligibility verification fraud and money laundering. The affidavits say illegal immigrants were the primary source of employees for the company. Some had worked at the restaurant as long as seven years. They were paid "off the books," often in cash. Both Arturo and Silvia Reyes, who is pregnant, are in the country illegally, according to immigration officials. Arturo and Sylvia Reyes co-managed the businesses and Silvia Reyes kept the books, according to affidavits by Charles Motsinger, a Springdale police detective assigned to an immigration and customs enforcement task force.
The investigation began in September 2006 after a confidential informant told authorities Arturo Reyes, 35, was harboring and employing illegal immigrants at his business. Immigration officials and police then noticed a number of the illegal immigrants they were arresting turned out to be Acambaro employees. They started interviewing the arrested Acambaro employees in March and using information gained about hiring and pay practices to make a case against Arturo and Silvia Reyes, 36. They learned employees were either never asked to provide documentation or fake documents were used. Investigation of financial records indicated the Reyes were dealing in large sums of cash, which investigators thought was unusual because most restaurant patrons were paying with debit cards, according to the informants. Using illegal immigrants for their primary labor source and paying them off the books allowed the company to turn a profit, officials said. Arturo and Silvia Reyes, of Rogers, along with Lucila Huaracha, 33, of Rogers, and Armando Reyes, 33, of Lowell were arrested Monday in a raid by federal and local immigration enforcement. Huaracha and Armando Reyes are also in the country illegally, according to immigration officials.
Huaracha supervised workers she knew were illegal immigrants and she knew money she deposited for the restaurant didn't come from legal transactions, while Armando Reyes hired or helped hire illegal immigrants to work at the restaurants, according to the federal charges against them. All are set for probable cause hearings next Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville. All four are being held in local jails on detainers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and cannot bond out of jail. Federal officials have also requested the forfeiture of 11 properties owned by the Reyes family in Benton and Washington counties. Nineteen other people suspected of being illegal immigrants were arrested during the raids, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Their identities have not been released.
Nice to see the US government doing it's job. Unfortunately, this took over a year just for the investigation! We need to allow our local law enforcement officers to deal with the problem of illegal immigration so that doesn't take years to stop companies like the Acambaro Restaurant Chain.
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5 comments:
I have eaten at the restaurant chain. I had a feeling about it, but when my wife and I asked, we were told they were all legal. The Reyes family were buying up a lot of places in Missouri.
Also, at George's in Butterfield, MO there are still a LOT of illegals, but to quote a supervisor there "The government doesn't work after 5P.M." and so the illegals mostly work the swing and graveyard sanitation shifts. George's has made life hard on the U.S. citizens (gringos) who work there, creating a high turnover rate so they have an argument that U.S. citizens (gringos) will not work or last at these plants.
When the raids happened, the company was forced to give .50 cent an hour raises to attract legal workers. Well, legals have more education than the illegals, can read and write in english and are older and more experienced than the illegals. To George's, Inc. that is bad for their business.
All employees who are legal and near or over the age of 40 have no hope for promotion, and are given the hardest and dirtiest jobs in the plant. Those near or over 40 who have any education beyond high school dropout are given a promotion only to lose it withing 6 months for various trumped up reasons. These people watch kids around the age of 20 promoted after only one or two weeks on the job. There are even some high school students, over 18 of course, who are promoted after 3 or 4 days of training, while people who have been there years are still in the same position they started in. All of those people are near or over 40 years old. When asking management why they (those over 40 years old) are not promoted they are told that, in their supervisors eyes, they cannot do the job, nor have the job skills necessary for the position.
One person I know there got a printout of her attendance and found that it contained numerous inaccuracies such as verbal/written notices she never saw or knew of along with two "suspension" days she never saw, knew of or served. When she went to see the HR Department she has been told no one is in, see her supervisor (who tells her to see HR), and has been given the brush off.
One of the "suspension" days is for when she took time off to take her husband to the hospital for heart surgery. Her supervisor and the then HR Chief, a Mr. Pratt told her it was ok for her to take the time off. She even offered to take a leave of absence to take her husband in for surgery. Mr. Pratt and her supervisor told her it was all ok for her to do it. Her record shows not only was it not ok, but a verbal notice, written notice and a suspension day for that particular day occurred.
Another employee I know who works there contracted pnuemonia after being told he had to stay at the plant, in the cafeteria/breakroom, along with other employees when the plant had no power, heat or running water after the ice storm last winter. He and the others stayed over 6 hours in that situation. The HR lady on duty informed them that all who left would have their names put on "the list" if they left. Imagine that, six hours in freezing temperatures, no bathroom facilities, no food, no water and if you leave you are put on some list. List for what? To be fired at the first chance? That is what my friend believed, and with a very sick little girl at home, he could not afford to lose the job and health insurance.
This is how George's, Inc. treats American citizens. This is how a company makes an argument FOR illegals. Lie about the legals and make the illegals look good. Hire back the illegals and cut the pay raise given after the raids. Use the trumped up false records to get the legal employees off site.
Another thing George's, Inc. is trying to do is to get the USDA Inspectors out of the plant and replace them with new in-house inspectors answerable only to George's. Imagine illegal aliens as inspectors for the foods you eat from KFC, Popeye's, Church's, Banquet and other fast food/ frozen food companies.
People who cannot read and write English, and as I know firsthand, cannot read and write AT ALL in any language as food inspectors. Think about it for a moment. Is this in your best interest? Or to make the bottom line look better for George's? Is this in the best interest of the American consumer, or to get a better bonus to the Plant Manager to make his Porsche (look in the company parking lot) payments?
Last of all, think about this. Illegals do as they are told, be it at the voting booth or to make donations to company (illegal loving) loving politicians. I had friends at George's tell me that McCaskill was going to win the Senate in Missouri because a few of the illegals they work with were going to vote "to keep jobs". How did the illegals vote? That I do not know, but on election day they proudly displayed "I Voted" stickers, which angered my friends.
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