Firm Fined $1.1 Million for Smuggling Ring
Federal immigration officials on Friday levied a record $1.1-million fine against a peach packing company where four employees have been convicted of running an illegal immigrant smuggling operation.
The fine against Lane Packing Co., one of Georgia’s largest peach harvesters and packagers, is the largest civil fine ever levied by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the agency said.
INS officials in Atlanta said Lane employees, for at least two years, smuggled about 250 illegal immigrants each month into its own orchards in Georgia and to other harvesters in Florida and North Carolina.
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