Garment Factory Owners Indicted

Half a dozen Thai and Laotian nationals were indicted Friday on charges that they harbored and employed illegal immigrants at three underground Los Angeles “sweatshops.”

A total of 51 illegal immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Thailand and Laos worked at the three garment factories raided Aug. 23 by U.S. immigration agents and Department of Labor officials, authorities said.

Indicted were Tawach and Kiriya Hirunpolkul, who officials say ran a factory on the Eastside at 1643 N. Indiana Ave.; Apai Pinwattana and his wife, Sumran Ngernok, who allegedly had a factory on North Virgil Avenue, and Bouaphanh and Vanhvilay Thammagno, who are said to own Virgil Apparel at 3109 1/2 Beverly Blvd.

The six owners forced the immigrants to “work long hours sewing clothing and would pay them meager wages based on their work product,” according to the indictment.

The indictment comes after last week’s filing of a lawsuit by 64 Thai garment workers who are seeking several hundred million dollars from 11 factory operators whom they accused of involuntary servitude, false imprisonment, racketeering, assault and civil rights and labor law violations at an apartment complex in El Monte.