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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
Cesar Navarrete and Geovanni Navarrete beat, threatened, and restrained Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants, forcing them to work as agricultural laborers. The farms were located in Flordia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The victims were underpaid, and continually mounted escalating debts, and were physically threatened if they tried to leave before their debt had been paid off. At the time of investigation, the family was holding 15 workers on the property. The Navarretes initially brought the workers to the U.S. to work picking the produce in their fields.
Response and intervention
In total, six family members were indicted by the court. Cesar, Geovanni, Jose, Villhina, Ismael, and Michael Navarrete and Antonia Zuniga Vargas were charged with harboring undocumented foreign nationals for private financial gain, commercial advantage, document fraud, and identity theft. Cesar Navarrete was also charged with re-entering the U.S. after being convicted and deported on felony charges. Jose Navarrete and Ismael Michael Navarrete were also charged with re-entering the U.S. after having been deported. If convicted, Geovanni and Cesar could face the maximum sentence of over 200 years in prison. The case was reported on November 20, 2007 when three of the victims, Jose Hari, Mariano Lucas, and Jose Vasquez, filed a complaint at the Collier County Sheriff’s Office. The men had escaped through the ventilation hatch of a truck parked on the Navarretes’ property. The case is being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, the FBI, the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General, and the Collier County Sheriff’s Department. A complaint was filed by the victims when three of them escaped.