Two managers at a McAllen produce warehouse are facing federal charges after investigators determined that nine employees lacked permission to work in the United States. Ricardo Javier Gorena, 64, and Exel Antonio Torres, 36, were each charged with a felony count of encouraging or inducing a non-citizen to unlawfully enter or live in the country, along with a misdemeanor count of unlawful employment of non-citizens.
According to a criminal complaint cited by ValleyCentral, Homeland Security Investigations executed a search warrant at the warehouse on October 7, and employees told investigators that Gorena managed the operation while Torres worked under him, supervising people who packaged fruit and vegetables. HSI is a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency the American Immigration Council describes as tasked with investigating crimes that include worker exploitation and document fraud, among other offenses, according to the American Immigration Council. HSI filed the criminal complaints against both men on October 23.
The complaint describes grueling conditions inside the warehouse. Employees reportedly worked more than 60 hours per week without receiving overtime pay. One worker, Wendy Lucio Rodriguez, told investigators she was paid $500 a week and suffered hand and finger injuries from repetitive work, and she said undocumented workers were exploited because their immigration status left them unable to negotiate for better pay or conditions, per the complaint. Another employee, Aquilino Cardenas Sanchez, said he earned about $700 a week while working roughly eight hours a day Monday through Wednesday and 10 to 12 hours or longer from Thursday through Saturday.
Torres Released on Bond, Ordered Back to Work Under Watch
Torres appeared in court Wednesday wearing a jacket bearing the London Fruit logo, reflecting his earlier employment with that company after it was acquired by GrubMarket. Judge Nadia S. Medrano set his bond at $30,000 and did not require a cash deposit, allowing him to return to work while warning him not to discuss the case with co-workers or anyone else and ordering him not to contact any witness, victim or co-conspirator in the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Cook Profit, who is prosecuting the case, said it would be better for Torres to find other employment. His attorney, Albert Flores of San Antonio, said Torres's involvement was likely minimal and that he had little direct involvement with employees. Gorena is scheduled for a bond hearing Thursday.
GrubMarket's Ties to the Warehouse
The warehouse traces back to RJ Produce, founded in McAllen in 2004 by Rick Gorena, which San Francisco-based GrubMarket acquired in 2021. At the time, GrubMarket said in a release distributed by PR Newswire that RJ Produce would continue under its existing leadership team and would keep sourcing fruits and vegetables from growers in Mexico and domestically, selling branded products at retailers nationwide, including Costco and Restaurant Depot. GrubMarket also acquired London Fruit in 2021, and Torres had worked for GrubMarket following that deal. The company filed paperwork with the Texas Secretary of State's office to keep using the RJ Produce name, and Ricardo Godinez, who has represented GrubMarket in several civil cases, serves as the company's registered agent in Texas. No accusation of wrongdoing has been made against GrubMarket in connection with the charges against Gorena and Torres.
Part of a Rare but Growing Wave of Employer Prosecutions
Cases like this one remain uncommon nationally. From 1986 through 2019, fewer than 15 employers were prosecuted annually on immigration-related charges, according to USA Today. That same reporting detailed a Michigan case in which federal authorities alleged business owners Moises and Raquel Orduna-Rios hired more than 200 undocumented immigrants between January 2022 and December 2024, with the couple arrested as investigators scrutinized company records, deposits and communications.
In Texas specifically, management-level indictments averaged 21 per year from 2021 through 2024, and the last four years of ICE labor-exploitation data showed only 84 management-level indictments nationwide among 3,115 total cases initiated, according to KXAN. That outlet's reporting also pointed to other Texas cases, including four operators of a Houston tortilla maker charged in 2017, a Big Spring restaurant owner charged in 2019, and two Rio Grande Valley bakery owners charged in March, as well as the convictions of five management-level employees at the Texas-based pallet company IFCO.
The McAllen case comes amid a broader nationwide enforcement surge. ICE arrested a record 51,000 people across the country in a single month in August 2025, according to Civil Eats, which reported that the summer surge continued into the fall and hit multiple hubs of food production, including meatpacking towns in southwest Kansas, along with traffic stops on roads used by farmworkers and arrests near agricultural workplaces in Virginia, New York and California. The outlet also noted that ICE has hired 12,000 new agents, more than doubling its ranks.
Separate McAllen Enforcement Action Remains Under Investigation
The warehouse case follows a separate enforcement action in McAllen in which several people apprehended were released after showing U.S. birth certificates, according to KRGV. HSI said at the time that no additional details were being released and that the criminal investigation remained ongoing.
Federal law makes it unlawful for an employer to continue employing a worker while knowing that person is not authorized to work in the United States, according to the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Separately, the felony count against Gorena and Torres stems from a provision covering those who encourage or induce a non-citizen to come to, enter or reside in the country knowing, or in reckless disregard of the fact, that doing so violates the law, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
