New 7-Eleven Crackdown Stems From Long Island ICE Busts

CUTCHOGUE, NY — The news Wednesday that federal immigration agents arrested 21 people at 7-Eleven stores across the country, putting management on notice about hiring practices, stemmed from a high profile crackdown at 7-Elevens on Long Island and the North Fork back in 2013.

Agents conducted a pre-dawn operation on Wednesday at 100 stores to open employment audits and question workers, according to the Associated Press report.

Derek Benner, a top official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Wednesday's operation was "the first of many" and "a harbinger of what's to come" for employers.

"This is what we're gearing up for this year and what you're going to see more and more of is these large-scale compliance inspections, just for starters. From there, we will look at whether these cases warrant an administrative posture or criminal investigation," said Benner, acting head of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations, which oversees cases against employers.

7-Eleven Stores Inc. — based in Irving, Texas, with more than 8,600 stores in the U.S. — didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment, the AP report said.

Wednesday's operation resulted from a 2013 investigation that resulted in charges against nine 7-Eleven franchisees and managers in New York and Virginia. Eight have pleaded guilty and were ordered to pay more than $2.6 million in back wages, and the ninth was arrested in November, the Associated Press said.

A former Long Island 7-Eleven manager was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 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 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 was 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, officials said.

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

According to officials, Baig, Yousaf and several others brought more than 50 immigrants into the country. 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, officials said.

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 named 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