A federal grand jury has indicted three men connected to a Cartersville flooring manufacturer on forced labor charges, more than a year after a raid on the plant freed dozens of workers from what investigators described as a trafficking operation. Zhu Chen, 60, his 31-year-old nephew Jiayi Chen, and 55-year-old associate Jianjun Lu were charged with conspiracy to commit forced labor and forced labor, with Zhu Chen also facing an alien harboring charge.
According to prosecutors, the three men brought Chinese nationals to the United States on B-1 and L-1 visas to work at Wellmade Industries, the Cartersville factory Zhu Chen owns. As reported by FOX 5 Atlanta, investigators said the defendants recruited the workers using false promises, then paid them less than promised once they arrived in Cartersville, Georgia.
Authorities said the men threatened workers with physical violence, deportation and crippling debt, and officials said the workers were forced to work 12-hour shifts, six days a week. Zhu Chen is also accused of housing workers without legal status in business-owned properties, and officials said the workers were subjected to unsafe conditions on the job.
How the Case Reached a Federal Grand Jury
The federal indictment traces back to a joint task force operation on March 26, 2025, when investigators executed search warrants at Wellmade Industries' 328,000-square-foot Cartersville plant and seven worker residences. According to ElevenFlo, the raid rescued more than 60 forced labor victims and identified between 300 and 400 foreign workers as potential trafficking victims, capping a multi-year federal and state investigation.
Zhu Chen, Jiayi Chen and Jianjun Lu were initially arrested in April 2025 on Georgia state felony charges of labor servitude trafficking before being released on $200,000 bonds, per the same account. The federal charges announced this week stemmed from a multi-agency effort led by Homeland Security Investigations in Dalton, the Bartow County Sheriff's Office Special Operations unit and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Court filings describe how the alleged scheme worked in practice: defendants confiscated workers' travel documents upon their entry into the country and crammed roughly 12 residents into each company-owned home, the Department of Justice said. Federal officials have not specified when the alleged labor trafficking began, and they have not released the exact number of victims involved in the case.
Company Collapsed Into Bankruptcy After the Raid
The raid's fallout extended well beyond the criminal case. Wellmade Floor Coverings International Inc. and its affiliate Wellmade Industries MFR N.A LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 4, 2025, after a primary lender declared a nonmonetary default triggered by the law enforcement action and scheduled a foreclosure sale, according to court records filed with GovInfo.
That October, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia approved the $58.5 million sale of the Cartersville manufacturing plant to Pennsylvania-based AHF Products, which completed the acquisition in November 2025, the trade outlet FloorDaily reported. AHF Products now operates the facility as part of its domestic hard-surface flooring manufacturing business and has no connection to the criminal allegations against the former owners.
Wellmade's 2026 Chapter 11 liquidating plan also incorporated a $5.2 million settlement to resolve civil labor-trafficking claims brought on behalf of former workers — a fraction of the more than $118 million creditors had initially estimated those claims could be worth, per ElevenFlo's reporting. Separately, court records show the U.S. government began issuing legal work authorization permits to affected workers starting in May 2025, allowing them to resign, leave company housing and seek lawful employment elsewhere in the country.
Prosecutors Face a High Bar at Trial
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Leanne Marek and Jennifer Keen, along with trial attorney Elizabeth Hutson, are prosecuting the federal case, which was built from information gathered by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia. The government must still prove the defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, and Zhu Chen, Jiayi Chen and Jianjun Lu face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
That maximum penalty reflects the statutory framework under 18 U.S.C. § 1589, which the Trafficking Victims Protection Act established to criminalize forced labor; a conviction can also bring statutory fines and mandatory victim restitution, according to federal law. Prior to the raid and bankruptcy, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had already cited Wellmade Industries for nine workplace safety violations at the Cartersville plant, a record ElevenFlo notes aligns with prosecutors' allegations of unsafe working conditions.
