Forced Labor in Johnston County, North Carolina (2009)

What happened

A recruiter from Million Express Manpower, a former labor contracting company out of Mount Olive, NC, lured 30 Thai men to work in Johnston County, North Carolina with a promise of earning $16,000 a year for 3 years. The recruiter charged a fee of $11,000 for each man to "secure" their job abroad. Once they arrived, the labor contractor confiscated their passports and visas. "After about a week living in a motel in Benson, they were moved to a small storage building in Dunn, behind the home of Seo Homsombath, a native of Laos who is president of Million Express." "Homsombath at first contained the men by telling them that, without passports, police would arrest them if they left the property. Later, he showed them a gun, according to both Asanok and the lawsuit. A relative or employee was always at the house to guard them, Asanok said."(Asanok is one of the Thai workers who sued Million Express) "Homsombath delivered food, but it often wasn't enough for all 30 men, Asanok said. They had no kitchen, so they cooked outside on a portable gas burner. By mid-October the farm work ran out, and Homsombath took the workers to New Orleans, the lawsuit says. They spent a few weeks in a condemned hotel, badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, without electricity or clean water. During the day, the lawsuit says, they demolished parts of the hotel they lived in. Asanok said he spent his days tearing down walls and hauling piles of destroyed carpet out of the hotel." "The Thai workers, including Asanok, say they were never paid for their work in New Orleans. Some were so broke, the suit says, that they trapped and ate pigeons." "Thai Workers Sue North Carolina Contractor" - http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/601 "Workers: Promise became Prison" - http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/551923.html "Low Pay and Broken Promises Greet Guest Workers" - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/us/28labor.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Low%20Pay%20and%20Broken%20Promises%20Greet%20Guest%20Workers%20&st=cse This case is also mentioned in Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter's book, "The Slave Next Door"