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Three defendants have been sentenced on federal conspiracy charges following a multi-year investigation into a human smuggling and labor trafficking operation that illegally transported migrant workers into brutal conditions on South Georgia farms. According US Attorney’s Office press release, Margarita Cardenas (48, Georgia), Nery Rene Carrillo-Najarro (61, Georgia), and Brett Donavan Bussey (44, Georgia) were each sentenced to prison, followed by a period of supervised release and court-ordered financial restitution to the victims. These sentences mark the final development in a string of over 20 individuals indicted in connection with Operation Blooming Onion, one of the largest human trafficking operations ever prosecuted in the U.S. and the first to specifically focus on protecting migrant workers from exploitation.

According to the US Attorney's Office, the court found that the conspirators and their associates "engaged in mail fraud, international forced labor trafficking, and money laundering, among other crimes," exploiting the H-2 Visa program to lure dozens of individuals from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras to enter the United States under the pretext of serving as agricultural workers. Through threats of deportation and violence, the defendants charged the workers illegal fees, withheld their identification documents, and housed them in crowded, unsanitary living conditions. The defendants also forced workers to perform physically demanding work for little or no pay — including digging onions with their bare hands for as little as 20 cents per bucket. At least two individuals died due to the conditions, and there were several reported incidents of kidnapping, violent threats, and rape. Investigators described the devastating situation as "modern-day slavery." These types of abuses are made possible in part because of the structural vulnerabilities of the H-2 visa programs. 

In the face of these brutal conditions, abuses, and illegal practices, workers organized and fought back. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers gathered leads about the abusive practices at an onion farm in Vidalia, Georgia. Sofi, one of the H-2A workers who arrived under the promise of an agricultural job, experienced years of physical abuse, confiscation of her passport and travel documents, control of movement, and even a coerced marriage. After she was nearly killed by the co-conspirators, she courageously came forward not only for her own safety, but to help provide testimony and evidence that helped agents finally piece together a string of leads relating to workplace abuse that anti-trafficking organizations had been tracking since 2015. Together, workers and migrant workers’ rights advocates, pushed for full investigations into the operations of agricultural organizations registered under Maria Leticia Patricio and over 20 others associated with a network of fraudulent exploitation of the H-2 visa program, sparking the multi-year, transnational effort that would become Operation Blooming Onion. 

In total, 24 individuals were indicted as part of Operation Blooming Onion. Each indictment was made possible by the cooperation of affected workers who testified, provided evidence, and bravely spoke up in the face of threats of deportation, violence, and financial extortion. With this final round of sentences, the case is now closed. Over 100 migrant workers have been freed from the scheme and will receive more than $1.3 million in restitution. Advocates including the United Farmworkers Foundation and Centro de los Derechos del Migrante continue to push for reforms within the H-2A visa program to end the vulnerability and exploitation that migrant workers face under these programs.

If you have questions about your labor rights, contact the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. (CDM): from Mexico, call 800 590 1773; from the United States, call 1 855 234 9699. 

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Read the 2026 Attorney General’s Office Press Release 

Read the 2021 Attorney General’s Office Press Release on Operation Blooming Onion

INDICTMENT: USA v. Patricio et al, Operation Blooming Onion: 521cr9.pdf