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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
Soripada Lubis, 54, a naturalized American citizen originally from Indonesia, pleaded guilty to harboring illegal aliens for commercial advantage and private financial gain. Lubis admitted that he harbored between six and 24 aliens and that he was a leader and organizer of his enterprise. Lubis’ wife, Siti Chadidjah Siregar, a citizen of Indonesia, pleaded guilty to aiding her husband to keeping at least 15 women in there basement on weekends. Lubis and Siregar have kept up to 11 undocumented Indonesian women in their crowded basement to live with and work as housekeepers for wealthy families in Potomac, Md. Some of the women slept three to a bed. Lubis imposed various rules on the Indonesian women that restrained their freedom of movement and him and his wife confiscated the womens’ passports and threatened to kill their families and alert immigration officials if they left. Lubis and Siregar charged the women $375 per month for "rent" and transportation, plus fees for "taxes" and to send money to Indonesia. During the last five years, Lubis and Siregar made more than $90,000 from their enterprise. Lubis, or an unnamed relative, would drive the women to households in places like Potomac, where they worked and lived during the week, the statement said. Investigators say some of the women had come to the United States legally, but fell into Lubis’ clutches after they overstayed their visas, or were persuaded by his offers of financial rewards to leave their original employers and violate their visas. Lubis recruited them after meeting them at parks or malls.
Response and intervention
Currently, Lubis is free on a personal recognizance bond and is being electronically monitored by the government. His sentencing is scheduled for May 15, 2009 and Lubis will faces up to 10 years in prison as well as an order to pay restitution to several women whom he hired out to work as maids. He was not charged with human trafficking, only harboring illegal immigrants, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison (Government officials define trafficking as holding someone in a workplace through force, fraud or coercion.) The investigation was conducted by ICE and the FBI. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James P. Gillis and Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Michael J. Frank.The investigation of Lubis began in August 2006 with a letter sent to the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia Investigators tracked Lubis through surveillance of his home and cars, the use of at least four confidential informants and examinations of evidence found in his discarded trash. The FBI and the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service are also involved in the probe. Authorities learned of Lubis in 2006, when a relative of a woman living in his basement contacted U.S. diplomats in Jakarta, Indonesia, seeking help. Over the next two years, authorities met with four women who said they had lived with Lubis at various times starting in 2001. Investigators say they watched as Lubis, and others, carted the women in a 2002 Silver Honda Odyssey to their Montgomery County jobs. Authorities searched through his trash, finding evidence of the operation as recently as October.