This is a new twist on convenience store scams I usually write about. Food stamp fraud on a massive scale is being perpetrated on the American taxpayer, but this time franchise owner’s of 7-Eleven stores in New York and Virginia have been found to be harboring illegal alien workers and then keeping a portion of their wages.
CARRIE MILLER PHOTO
The report in the Washington Post tells us that now a nationwide effort is being made to check other 7-Eleven stores for similar types of fraud. And, it reminded me, has the killer been identified in the murder of the Bhutanese refugee in St. Louis who was found shot in the 7-Eleven store in which he worked.
And, you know what is galling too! All the illegal alien Pakis taken into custody in the 7-Eleven raids could get amnesty in the coming months if the Gang of Eight is successful in getting a bill to Obama this year.
Here is the WaPo story. I had to laugh because the alleged perps are not identified until the closing paragraphs.
A married couple and two brothers who operated 7-Eleven stores in Virginia and New York employed dozens of illegal immigrants under assumed identities and exploited the workers by pocketing some of their wages and requiring them to pay rent to live in unlicensed boardinghouses, authorities said.
Federal indictments unsealed Monday in Brooklyn, N.Y., allege that the four owners and five additional defendants carried out the years-long scheme at four 7-Eleven stores in the Norfolk area and 10 stores in Long Island, N.Y.
At least 50 illegal immigrants, most or all of them from Pakistan, were employed at various times under more than 20 stolen identities of U.S. citizens, some of which were used repeatedly, authorities said.
“From their 7-Eleven stores, the defendants dispensed wire fraud and identity theft along with Slurpees and hot dogs,” said Loretta E. Lynch, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, whose office is handling the case. “The defendants not only systematically employed illegal immigrants but concealed their crimes by raiding the cradle and the grave to steal the identities of children and even the dead.”
More stores are going to be investigated. Maybe Homeland Security should check that 7-Eleven in South St. Louis where the refugee was recently murdered.
The alleged scheme had been going on for more than a decade, authorities said. They said the investigation is continuing and that federal agents were inspecting the employment record at about 30 other 7-Eleven stores in the country. Lynch called the case “one of the largest criminal immigrant employment investigations ever conducted” by the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Coming out of the shadows! In the last two paragraphs we learn who the crooks are:
The married couple, Farrukh Baig, 57, and Bushra Baig, 49, both of Long Island, controlled the franchise rights to four Virginia 7-Eleven stores in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake, according to the prosecutors. The brothers, Azhar Zia, 49, and Ummar Uppal, 48, also of Long Island, controlled the franchise rights to two 7-Elevens in Long Island.
The Baigs and Zia are naturalized U.S. citizens and Uppal is a Pakistani national, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Of five additional defendants, who helped the Baigs run their stores, authorities said, three are naturalized U.S. citizens, one is a Pakistani national and one is a citizen of the Philippines.
PHOTO! There are more details in the Suffolk Times and it is where the photo is from.
Readers, this post only tangentially involves refugees (that we know of so far!), some enterprising blogger-wannabe should write a blog primarily dedicated to reporting on scams to rip-off the infidels—food stamp fraud, Medicare/Medicaid fraud, wire fraud and trafficking (human!) like this story.