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What happened
The trafficker, Maria Terechina, is a 47 year old U.S. citizen who immigrated from the Russian federation. She was described by her lawyers as a “Russian grandmother.” The trafficker worked with co-conspirators who have pleaded guilty to charges of harboring immigrants illegally. The trafficker helped trick hundreds of Eastern European (from Russia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and other Eastern European countries) women into taking jobs working for hotels in Ohio. She would take the passports and other immigration documents of the women and control their movements. The trafficker would tell the women that they owed debts between $600-$1000 which were taken from their wages and added to the debts by requiring the women to pay for transportation and housing expenses.
Response and intervention
The case was investigated by special agents of the FBI; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; The U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Inspector General; and the U.S. Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service. The case was jointly prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel A. Brown from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio, and the Trial Attorney Ryan R. McKinstry from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The trafficker was sentenced to 12 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $250,000 in restitution to her victims. After she is released from prison, the trafficker will be on federal supervised release for three years. The trafficker pleaded guilty in April 2010 to conspiring to defraud the government and conduct human trafficking. The women will receive nearly $250,000 in restitution to be paid by the trafficker. The IRS began an investigation into the cleaning businesses operated by the trafficker which employed immigrants not allowed to work in the United States. Sources: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/December/10-crt-1460.html http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/12/18/prison-term-for-human-trafficking.html