L.A. firm at center of huge human-smuggling case

A Westwood company is at the center of a federal indictment alleging a massive human-smuggling ring involving Thai workers.

The indictment alleges that the defendants enticed the Thai immigrants to come to the United States with false promises of lucrative jobs. The workers had their passports confiscated and were not paid the wages outlined in their contracts, the FBI said.

The indictment alleges that Global Horizons Manpower Inc. was involved in a scheme to coerce the labor and services of about 400 Thai nationals brought to the United States from May 2004 through September 2005 to work on farms across the country under a federal agricultural guest-worker program, the FBI said in a news release.

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