Feds Raid 7-Eleven Stores

This story was reported by Matt Hampton and Pam Robinson.

Federal agents raided about 10 7-Eleven stores around Suffolk County Monday morning, including the store on East Main Street in Huntington.

The franchise owners are accused of illegally hiring undocumented workers and sometimes cheating them of their wages. The parking lot of the store at 128 East Main Street was sectioned off with yellow police tape, with an unmarked federal SUV and a Suffolk County police car blocking the entrances.
 
Enforcement officials called the sting the "largest criminal immigration forfeiture" in the history of the Department of Homeland Security.

The defendants face 20 years’ imprisonment on wire fraud conspiracy and alien harboring charges, as well as multiple counts of aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory, consecutive two-year term.

"The 7-Eleven franchises seized today will be better known for their big fraud than their Big Gulp," Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent James Hayes said. "As alleged, the franchise owners knowingly and repeatedly employed an illegal workforce and abused and exploited that workforce for more than 13 years."

"In bedroom communities across Long Island and Virginia, the defendants not only systematically employed illegal immigrants, but concealed their crimes by raiding the cradle and the grave to steal the identities of children and even the dead," U.S. Attorney Eastern District Loretta Lynch said.   

Lynch said that in one case, the offenders used the same stolen identity in multiple stores at the same time.

One defendant, Azhar Zia, who is still at large, owned two 7-Eleven stores, located in Huntington and Islip Terrace.

Because of the similarity of the two fraud incidents — both unrelated — the Department of Homeland Security on Monday initiated raids on more than 40 7-Eleven locations, including 25 in New York City, to sniff out other possible incidents.