{"id":290231,"date":"2014-01-30T16:53:40","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T22:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?p=290231"},"modified":"2014-01-31T16:42:23","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T22:42:23","slug":"three-area-residents-arrested-in-human-smuggling-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=290231","title":{"rendered":"Three East Texans Named in Human Smuggling Ring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?attachment_id=290233\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-290233\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2014\/01\/thumb_dept-justice-seal2.jpg\" alt=\"thumb_dept-justice-seal\" width=\"120\" height=\"120\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-290233\" \/><\/a>BEAUMONT &#8211; Two suspects from Nacogdoches and one from Mineola were named as a task force of federal, state, and local law enforcement began arresting 32 defendants charged with RICO and immigration violations in the Eastern District of Texas.  The announcement came from U.S. Attorney John M. Bales and Brian M. Moskowitz, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Houston Thursday. Among those charged in the indictment are Zeng Yu Huang, 50, of Mineola; Selena Ling Feng, 37, of Nacogdoches; and Zongxian Zhu, 41, of Nacogdoches. <!--more-->  <\/p>\n<p>According to court documents, two employment referral businesses operating out of Houston recruited unauthorized aliens, mostly from Mexico and Central America, for work in the Chinese restaurant industry.  Officials say the workers routinely worked 12 hours a day six days a week, were not paid overtime, were not permitted to receive tips or gratuities, and were paid in cash by the restaurants.  The restaurants allegedly profited by avoiding payment of employment taxes and reportedly did not provide any benefits such as health insurance, vacation, or sick time.  Workers were paid far less than minimum wage and did not receive health examinations, food safety training, or any job training at any time while employed, according to authorities. <\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the workers were allegedly subject to unfavorable living arrangements provided by the restaurant operators, either at the operator\u2019s residence or at another off-site residential location. Living arrangements were said to be overcrowded and sometimes reportedly consisted of air mattresses or floors for sleeping.  For instance, 18 people were found to be housed in a 2000-square-foot house, according to investigators. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEAUMONT &#8211; Two suspects from Nacogdoches and one from Mineola were named as a task force of federal, state, and local law enforcement began arresting 32 defendants charged with RICO and immigration violations in the Eastern District of Texas. The announcement came from U.S. Attorney John M. Bales and Brian M. Moskowitz, special agent in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=290231\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Three East Texans Named in Human Smuggling Ring<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-10 03:49:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290231"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290299,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290231\/revisions\/290299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}