Two San Antonio men are cuffed and stuffed for allegedly enslaving workers in a diabolical labor trafficking scheme hidden behind the guise of a trucking business, authorities say. The perpetrators, identified as Jose De Jesus Velasquez, 35, and Juan Carlos Velasquez-Flores, 27, face charges of continuous trafficking of persons—a serious first-degree felony. Their arrest followed a tip-off to the San Antonio Police on July 8, 2023, via the National Human Trafficking Hotline, as detailed in a report by NBC 15.
The authorities zeroed in on the case after meeting a 57-year-old Mexican immigrant, who rolled into the U.S. on a work visa for farm labor, only to find himself ensnared in a trafficking trap, as per the arrest affidavit. His liberation from farm work led him to the now-shuttered VSR Transportation, where Velasquez recruited him as a truck driver and mechanic with the sweet talk of a weekly paycheck, and a shiny new work visa. News4SanAntonio reports that instead of the promised wage, he received only scraps for mechanic duties, and was press-ganged into clocking illegal long hauls that tested not just his limits, but also the safety of unsuspecting road sharers.
When he tried to slam the brakes on their exploitation and claim his hard-earned pay, the twisted duo allegedly played their trump card, menacing to bring immigration officials down on his head or cook up a false felony charge against him, "Velasquez to call the immigration officials on him, as well as falsely accusing him of being a thief to the local authorities," the victim told NBC 15. They even physically threatened him, and exiled him from company territory per the same report.
This 57-year-old's ordeal wasn't an isolated event. During the investigation, detectives unearthed two more men snared by the same deceitful tactics, echoing nearly identical testimonies of coercion. All victims singled out the Velasquez duo from a police photo lineup, linking them unequivocally to the labor trafficking operation. Meanwhile, the suspects laid out a flimsy defense, claiming bankruptcy as the reason they couldn't pay up, according to News4SanAntonio.
