Virginia Company May Forfeit $6 Million for Employing Illegal Aliens

By: Lauren Perry

A Virginia based commercial fishing company recently entered guilty pleas for illegally employing aliens. The company employed approximately 126 aliens on their 332 commercial fishing ship voyages spanning 2003-2006. The trips produced $6,900,000 in illegal profits.

The fishing company is also said to be in connection with fraudulent Social Security cards that the aliens used on at least 72 occasions, several of these times resulting in the Coast Guard boarding the ships and seizing the fake documents.

One of the company’s employees went to the owner of the company and told him the Coast Guard seized counterfeit documents that “looked good,” in which the owner responded that if they looked good, there would be no reason to worry. The conversation was tape recorded.

In the guilty plea agreement, the owners agreed to pay a combined $150,000 fine, and are facing a maximum year and a half in prison. The corporation itself agreed to pay a $500,000 fine and faces a forfeiture of $6,258,638 in illegal profits.

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