Polk County Farm Boss Heads To Prison For Coercing Migrant Laborers

BARTOW, FL — The owner of a farm labor company has been sentenced to nearly 10 years in federal prison for forcing Mexican migrants to labor in the fields.

Bladimir Moreno, 55, was sentenced to 118 months in prison for leading a federal racketeering and forced labor conspiracy that victimized Mexican agricultural workers in the United States between 2015 and 2017, according to the Department of Justice.

In addition to the prison sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Edward Honeywell of the Middle District of Florida ordered Moreno to be supervised for three years upon release and pay his victims $175,000 in restitution.

Moreno was the owner of Los Villatoros Harvesting LLC at 8331 Alturas Road in Bartow, the labor contracting company that employed the farm workers. He was charged in September 2021 and pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and conspiracy to commit forced labor, according to the DOJ.

Two of Moreno’s co-defendants previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy under RICO, and a third, Guadalupe Mendes, 45, pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct a federal investigation. They were sentenced in October.

Efrain Cabrera Rodas, a citizen of Mexico who worked for LVH as a recruiter, manager and supervisor, received 41 months in prison. Christina Gamez, a U.S. citizen who worked for LVH as a bookkeeper, manager and supervisor, received 37 months in prison. Mendes, a U.S. citizen who worked for LVH as a manager and supervisor, received eight months of home detention and a $5,500 fine to be paid over 24 months of supervised release.

“Human trafficking, including forced labor campaigns that exploit vulnerable workers, is unlawful, immoral and inhumane,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “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."

She said Moreno confiscated the farm workers' passports, imposed exorbitant fees, threatened them with deportation or arrest if they didn't comply and forced them to work in inhumane conditions.

"The Department of Justice is committed to seeking justice for survivors of forced labor campaigns, holding perpetrators accountable and stripping wrongdoers of their illegal profits," Clarke said.

According to court documents, Moreno brought large numbers of temporary, seasonal Mexican workers into the United States on H-2A agricultural visas and then made them work in Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and North Carolina.

Court records say he engaged in a pattern of other racketeering activity including visa fraud and fraud in foreign labor contracting, among other things. Moreno made false statements in applications to federal agencies for the company to be granted the temporary, H-2A agricultural workers.

The DOJ said Moreno and his conspirators also made false promises to the Mexican farm workers to encourage them to work for LVH and then charged them inflated sums to come into the United States on the H-2A visas.

Once the immigrants arrived in the United States, Moreno and his co-conspirators coerced over a dozen of them into providing long hours of physically demanding agricultural labor six to seven days a week for minimal pay, said the justice department.

The justice department said Moreno and his conspirators imposed exorbitant debts on the workers, confiscated their passports, subjected them to crowded, unsanitary and degrading living conditions, harbored them in the United States after their visas expired and threatened them with arrest and deportation if they didn't comply.

Later, in an attempt to conceal his crimes from federal investigators, Moreno created and provided investigators with records that contained fake information about the workers’ pay and hours, and repeatedly made false statements to federal investigators.

“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. “We will continue to work with our task force partners to combat human trafficking in all its forms, including prosecuting those who exploit vulnerable workers.”

The Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, investigated the case with assistance from the Department of Labor, 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 the Indiana Legal Services Worker Rights and Protection Project.

Anyone who has information about human trafficking is urged to contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free at 888-373-7888 24 hours a day, seven days a week.