The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Texas says Maximo Mondragon was the last of eight defendants sentenced in connection with the scheme. Authorities say the ring in the Houston area threatened victims and their families with harm if they attempted to leave before working off their smuggling debt.
Before being sentenced Monday, the 57-year-old Mondragon had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hold people as indentured servants, illegally recruiting, harboring and transporting people for labor and conspiracy to bring, harbor and transport illegal immigrants for private financial gain.
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