Ohio meat processing plant agrees to pay $3.7 million following scheme to use stolen identities of U.S. citizens for workers


An Akron meat-processing plant recently entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio after its hiring manager was involved in an identity theft scheme, federal prosecutors say.
The company will pay $3.7 million as part of its agreement.
According to court documents, Yelwin Omar Munoz-Solis, the hiring manager of Salem, Ohio meat processor Fresh Mark, Inc., helped to orchestrate a scheme that stole the identities of U.S. citizens, giving them to job applicants at Fresh Mark’s plants. He then certified I-9 documents, which are used to confirm employees’ identities and employment eligibility for the workers.
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While executing search warrants at Fresh Mark’s Salem, Massillon, and Canton plants in 2018, investigators identified 146 individuals who were in the country without proper legal status.
”Stealing identities to transfer to others not eligible to work is not an acceptable business practice,” U.S. Attorney Rebecca Lutzko for the Northern District of Ohio said in a press release. “Employers must ensure that their hiring practices comply with all federal laws, and businesses caught providing false statements to the government will be held to account.”
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