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Dispatches From

Exclusive: In a Game of ‘Springfieldopoly,’ ‘King George’ Built an Empire with Estimated Revenues of $180M, and Feds and State AG Now Expand Human Trafficking Probe into Alleged Identity Theft and Tax Fraud

Dispatch from Springfield, Ohio, Part II – In reporting for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit initiative for independent journalism, I have learned that federal and state investigations into alleged human trafficking of Haitian workers by First Diversity Staffing Company LLC in Springfield, Ohio, have widened to include the alleged theft of Social Security numbers and the identities of American citizens, along with wage, tax and immigration fraud. Over the past five years, I’ve also learned, local businessman George Ten, nicknamed “King George,” transformed First Diversity into an empire with an estimated $180 million in gross revenues, in a business strategy the company called “Springfieldopoly.” According to sources, Springfield’s city planner, Bryan Heck, was warned as far back as 2019 that George was using First Diversity to allegedly traffic Haitian migrant workers from Florida to Ohio in a corrupt scheme that profits off the desperate. Heck said he doesn’t remember such a meeting. In a charm offensive, George and his top leaders invited me into their offices, where they have a room they call the “Monopoly Room.” They deny any wrongdoing. From Florida to Ohio, this story unravels a web of broken promises, false hope and the brutal reality behind the illusion of economic growth and opportunity that confronts migrant workers and small towns nationwide. Indeed, King George’s company undergirds not only Springfield’s shadow economy, but also America’s, benefiting the elite but doing little for the nation’s most vulnerable, new arrivals and old. Stay tuned for Part III of my investigation.

Exclusive: Feds and State AG Investigate an Alleged Human Trafficking Empire Run in Springfield, Ohio, for Years by ‘King George’

Dispatches from Springfield, Ohio – The story in this town is not about cats or dogs. It’s about mules. It’s a twin tragedy of migrant workers from Haiti exploited and locals from Springfield marginalized. Just about every week since 2019, First Diversity Staffing Group Inc. has shuttled vulnerable Haitian migrants in unmarked white Ford and Chevy vans from Florida to Ohio, where they are allegedly exploited for cheap labor by companies like Dole Food Company Inc. It is a secretive and sinister operation that has gone unchecked for more than five years. The mastermind behind this scheme lives in a $1.35 million mansion on Pawleys Plantation Court. His name is George Ten, but in that underworld, his nickname is “King George,” because of his opulent lifestyle of luxury cars, cash handouts and fast-talk. For years, he has operated his reign of alleged exploitation openly and freely out of a former mansion on E. High Street.

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More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.