Long Island Man Busted in 7-Eleven Sting Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison

A former Long Island 7-Eleven manager was sentenced to four years in prison Wednesday for wire fraud, alien harboring and identify theft, according to officials.

According to the United States Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York, Malik Yousaf, of South Setauket, was sentenced Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Central Islip.

Yousaf used stolen identities and harbored illegal alien workers to carry out the scheme, which took place at 7-Eleven stores throughout Long Island and Virginia, said Robert L. Capers, United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

According to court filings and facts presented in court, Capers said, Yousaf acted as the chief manager of five 7-Eleven franchise stores during the course of the conspiracy, hired dozens of illegal aliens, equipped them with more than 20 identities stolen from United States citizens, housed them at residences his co-conspirators owned, and stole substantial portions of his workers’ wages.

During the scheme, Yousaf generated more than $182 million in proceeds from the 7-Eleven franchise stores, Capers said.

In addition, the court also entered an order forfeiting Yousaf's rights to eight 7-Eleven stores in New York and 10 7-Eleven stores in Virginia, as well as a Long Island residence worth more than $150,000, officials said.

Yousaf will also be required to pay $2.5 million in restitution for the back wages that he stole from his workers, Capers said.

Bail was denied in 2013 for Yousaf, who was involved in a scheme that included smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States and subjecting them to long work hours for scant pay at the convenience stores.

Yousaf, one of the nine people arrested in the sting, had reportedly put up a bail package valued around $2 million, including homes on Long Island and in New Hampshire belonging to himself, family and friends. His lawyer said at the time that the ruling would be appealed.

According to officials, Baig, Yousaf and several others brought more than 50 immigrants into the country and in addition to having them work extra hours at the 7-Eleven shops they oversaw – reportedly up to 100-hour work weeks – the workers were forced to live in housing owned by Baig. Rent was then reportedly deducted from the pay earned by the workers, whose identities had been fabricated in order to falsify working documents.

U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch of the Eastern District of New York in June 2013, announced the indictment of nine people in one of the largest criminal immigrant employment investigations ever conducted by the Department of Justice.

• Read the full indictment here.

"We've all seen them, they are part of the roadside scenery of America. They are instantly recognizable to anyone who has run out to buy cigarettes or taken a road trip," Lynch said. "But inside this familiar red, green and orange-striped facade, beside the coffee and the Big Gulps, a decidedly un-American practice was going on inside the stores we've targeted today."

Lynch said that Farrukh Baig, of Head of the Harbor, along with his wife Bushra and six others, including Yousaf, were involved in the scheme to force illegal immigrant labor to work long hours in their 7-Eleven franchises, skirting labor laws by using stolen identities to mask the actual time their workers spent on the clock.

Compounding the crime, Baig then paid the illegal workers a fraction of their actual earnings and forced them to live in housing Baig and his family owned in exchange for rent taken out of their meager cash-only pay, according to the complaint.

Baig owned eight 7-Eleven franchises across Long Island, including two locations in Smithtown. He owned a then-new store on Terry Road and one each in Islip, Selden, Sag Harbor, Greenport, Nesconset, Cutchogue and Port Jefferson Station.

The scheme started to crumble in 2010 when a handful of the undocumented workers could no longer tolerate the conditions and reported Baig and his wife to the state police.

Special Agent James Hayes, of Homeland Security, said that 40 other 7-Eleven locations would be investigated, including 25 in the New York City area, in an attempt to discover how widespread the practice could be.

On Long Island's North Fork, residents reacted in shock to the authorities who briefly shut down 7-Elevens in 2013 during the sting. "It's unbelievable — they used Gestapo tactics," said Jack Gismondi of Peconic. "They're bullies. All they were missing were the Jackboots."

'They stormed in," said Gismondi's wife Chris.

One resident, John, of Greenport, who asked that his last name not be used, was surprised to hear the news. "I didn't know what the heck was going on," he said. "But it's good that they caught them."

Patch photo by Lisa Finn