A 7-Eleven in Long Island, New York. WUSA-9 PHOTO
SAN FRANCISCO — Five 7-Eleven franchise owners pleaded guilty to knowingly hiring undocumented aliens, many of them Filipinos, stealing their earnings and forcing them to live in miserable conditions in various houses in Suffolk County, Long Island, according to court papers.
The defendants skimmed a total of $2.6 million that was owed to the workers, according to a New York Post report on September 22.
The exploited mostly Pakistani and Filipino workers served wealthy customers at locations including Sag Harbor and Greenport while living in squalor, prosecutors said.
They routinely worked up to 100 hours a week behind the counter and were paid just $350 to $500 in cash — about a quarter of what they had earned, the NY Post reported.
“Using the 7-Eleven brand, the defendants dispensed wire fraud and identity theft, along with Big Gulps and candy bars,” said US Attorney Loretta Lynch in a statement. “In our backyards, the defendants not only systematically employed illegal aliens, but concealed their employment by using the names of children and even the dead.”
Farrukh Baig, leader of the scheme, faces up to 20 years in prison. The NY Post described him as a “Pakistani bigshot who counts former Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf as a pal.”
Prosecutors said Farrukh Baig lived in fancy Head of Harbor on Long Island and freely spent the profits from their fourteen 7-Eleven locations on cars and other luxuries.
Baig and his henchmen stole the identities of American citizens —including kids, the deceased and a US Coast Guard cadet — and assigned them to their staffers. Several of those who pleaded guilty are members of the Baig family.