Farm Labor Company Owner Sentenced for Forced Labor Conspiracy
The owner of a Florida-based company that provided agriculture workers to U.S. farms was sentenced to 118 months in prison. Prosecutors say 55-year-old Bladimir Moreno exploited and forced Mexican farm workers into labor across multiple states, with court documents stating he ran his company like a “criminal enterprise.” Three other co-conspirators earlier pleaded guilty.
“Forcing individuals to work against their will using abusive and coercive tactics is not only unconscionable but illegal,” said U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg for the Middle District of Florida.
Charges were filed against Moreno in 2021. He pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and conspiracy to commit forced labor through his farm labor contracting company, Los Villatoros Harvesting LLC (LVH). LVH’s business worked to bring large numbers of temporary, seasonal Mexican workers into the U.S. on H-2A agricultural visas.
According to court documents in the Middle District of Florida, Moreno and the co-conspirators charged Mexican farm workers inflated sums to come into the U.S. on H-2A visas and made false promises to the workers to encourage them to work for his company.
Moreno “compelled victims to work in Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and North Carolina, and he engaged in a pattern of other racketeering activity that included visa fraud and fraud in foreign labor contracting, among other things.”
Once in the U.S., Moreno coerced over a dozen workers into “long hours of physically demanding agricultural labor, six to seven days a week, for de minimis pay.”
Forms of coercion included imposing debts, confiscating worker passports, subjecting workers to degrading living conditions, and threatening arrest and deportation.
Moreno is also accused of falsifying records to hide the criminal activity.
“This defendant abused his power as a business owner to capitalize on the victims’ vulnerabilities and immigration status, luring those seeking a better quality of life with false promises of lawful work paying a fair wage,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Edward Honeywell of the Middle District of Florida sentenced Moreno. Besides the 118 months in prison, he received three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay more than $175,000 in restitution to victims.
The Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, which is made up of the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, lead the investigation.
Assistance was provided by the Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, the Department of State Diplomatic Security Service, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Colorado Legal Services Migrant Farm Worker Division, Legal Aid Services of Oregon Farmworker Program, and Indiana Legal Services Worker Rights and Protection Project.