Chicago, United States
A woman from the city Cicero, Chicago neighbor, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for subjecting Guatemalan immigrants to forced labor to whom she charged exorbitant prices for their assistance in illegally entering the United States, the federal prosecutor reported Monday.
Concepción Malinek, 50, was arrested in March last year by federal agents, who found it in dire circumstances 19 immigrant adults and 14 children in a house they own.
The immigrants lived crammed into the basement of the house and the adults were forced to give the woman a large portion of the payments they received for working at a factory in the city of Romeoville, Illinois.
When Malinek admitted his guilt last year, he said inside the court that helped at least 10 Guatemalans enter the United States between 2009 and 2019 undocumented, and in some cases also received them fraudulent identifications.
According to a statement by the Prosecution, one of the victims said so earned $ 1,956 per month, of which he gave 974 to Malinek to deduct some of his debt for taking her to Chicago, as well as food, phone, and transportation costs to and from work.
Another person revealed that Malinek charged him $ 18,000 for allowing him to use his name and address on immigration documents.
The prosecution reported that Malinek monitored all the movements of his victims, knew where they were at all times and the value of each check they received in payment for their work.
In addition to a 78-month sentence, Federal Judge Edmond E. Chang sentenced her to return $ 112,545 to the victims.