Name

Rustamjon Shukurov

Additional Information

Wanted for:

Labor Trafficking; RICO

Place of birth:

Uzbekistan

Gender:

Male

Summary:

See Also: Yunusov, Nodir; Agzamov, Sandjar

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — In June 2005, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Kansas City opened an investigation into Giant Labor Solutions (GLS), after receiving information that two Uzbek nationals were operating a labor service business and employing illegal aliens.

This HSI-led investigation expanded to include the following agencies: FBI, Department of Labor, Internal Revenue Service, Kansas Department of Revenue, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This ad hoc task force pursued the GLS conspiracy for the next four years.

GLS was indicted in May 2009 in the Western District of Missouri for forced labor trafficking and fraud in foreign labor contracting, the first application of these statutes in the United States.

The principle target of the GLS investigation – Abrorkhodja Askarkhodjaev – and others were arrested in May 2009 in Brooklyn, New York, as he prepared to flee the country. At the same time, more than 40 human trafficking victims were rescued in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri; Casper, Wyoming; Panama City, Florida; Fairfax County, Virginia; and Overland Park, Kansas.

Three of the indicted members of the conspiracy – Sandjar Agzamov, Nodir Yunusov, and Rustamjon Shukurov – fled from the United States and remain fugitives.

In January 2010, a 127-count superseding indictment charged the GLS conspirators with 59 counts of forced labor trafficking and 20 counts of fraud in foreign labor contracting.