A U.S. couple has been charged with employing undocumented workers in several states, including upstate New York.
According to WRGB, Moises Orduna-Rios, 36, and Raquel Orduna-Rios, 30, have been detained after reportedly making $74 million through their Michigan-based plumbing company, Orduna Plumbing. According to federal prosecutors, they used hundreds of undocumented workers, including immigrants captured by ICE in Buffalo, Rochester, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
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According to MLive.com, Orduna Plumbing employed 253 workers, but federal authorities confirmed that only six could legally work and live in the United States.
A criminal complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York alleges that the contracting firm operated throughout New York, Michigan, North Carolina, and Ohio. The pair allegedly seized workers’ passports and put them in overcrowded homes and hotel rooms.
According to WRGB, nine people allegedly lived together in a “sparsely furnished residence” in Rochester. All nine were arrested, including five from Mexico and four from Nicaragua; one was freed due to an outstanding immigration issue.
According to MLive, the inquiry began in January 2020, when US Border Patrol officials in Buffalo discovered undocumented immigrants operating vehicles registered to Orduna Plumbing. According to federal officials, a work van parked outside an Amherst hotel was registered to the company and Moises Orduna-Rios in Plymouth, Michigan.
ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) also detained five undocumented Mexican immigrants in Buffalo in April 2023 and eight persons in three vehicles in Western New York in 2024. In all four occasions, they were driving Orduna-Rios and Ordina Plumbing automobiles or vans.
According to court documents, texts discovered on a worker’s phone during a recent search warrant revealed that Raquel and Moises Oduna-Rios sent WhatsApp messages to employees about passports, payroll, tools, work vehicles, and housing requirements. On February 1, Moises encouraged them to avoid immigration enforcement by following the speed limit, limiting trips to the shop, and avoiding “gatherings such as barbeques.”
Moises and Raquel Orduna-Rios appeared in court in the Eastern District of Michigan last week and were freed on $10,000 bond. They are set to appear at Rochester’s Federal Courthouse on December 2.
The couple is being charged with sheltering undocumented workers for “commercial advantage or private financial gain,” employing “at least 10 unauthorized aliens,” participating in a practice of hiring undocumented immigrants, and money laundering.
If proven guilty, the pair could face up to ten years in prison and a $3,000 fine per undocumented worker.
