BREAKING: 7-Eleven Owners Plead Guilty to Human Trafficking

House of Horror: This dilapidated house in Islip Terrace, Long Island was used by several 7-Eleven franchisees as a modern day plantation.

Via The New York Post

A crew of crooked 7-Eleven franchise owners pleaded guilty to setting up a “plantation” system for illegal alien employees to increase profits at their Slurpee strongholds in Virginia and Long Island, according to the feds.

Five defendants copped to knowingly hiring illegal aliens, siphoning off their earnings and forcing them to live in dingy boarding homes scattered across Suffolk County, according to court papers.

The scheme skimmed a total of $2.6 million that was owed to the workers, court papers state.

“Using the 7-Eleven brand, the defendants dispensed wire fraud and identity theft, along with Big Gulps and candy bars,” said US Attorney Loretta Lynch in a statement. “In our backyards, the defendants not only systematically employed illegal aliens, but concealed their employment by using the names of children and even the dead.”

Mastermind Farrukh Baig — a Pakistani bigshot who counts former Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf as a pal — faces up to 20 years in prison at his sentencing.

Continue reading 7-Eleven owners admit ‘plantation’ system to boost profits [NY Post]

Related

NY couple admits exploiting 7-Eleven workers [Washington Post]
5 Plead Guilty on Long Island to Exploiting 7-Eleven Immigrant Workers [7 Online]
LI husband and wife 7-Eleven owners plead guilty to exploitation scheme [Newsday]
7-Eleven immigration sting suspects plead guilty [Suffolk Times]
NY couple admits exploiting 7-Eleven workers [Daily Record]
7-Eleven Chain Busted For Hiring Illegal Workers And Stealing Identities Of Americans [Inquisitr]

California Bill Would Help Protect Franchisee Business Investments

Via Business Insider

LOS ANGELES – When Kathryn Slater-Carter learned her family would lose $1.5 million after McDonald’s Corp did not renew the franchise agreement on one of their restaurants in the San Francisco suburbs, she tried for a second time to change state law to protect franchisee investments.

That renewed effort may bear some fruit. California lawmakers in August passed the new bill she championed and Governor Jerry Brown has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto it.

At present, California law only requires franchisors that terminate or fail to renew a franchise agreement to offer to repurchase a franchisee’s inventory.

Among other things, the pending legislation known as SB 610 would require a franchisor that terminates an agreement without a material breach to compensate the franchisee for the fair value of their business, or to provide them an opportunity to sell.

The watered-down law passed by lawmakers would not have prevented the equity loss Slater-Carter says her family suffered when their McDonald’s restaurant in a Daly City, California, shopping mall was forced to close, but “it’s a start,” she said. The franchise agreement on her family’s one remaining Daly City restaurant expires in 2016.

A spokeswoman for McDonald’s said that the mall restaurant closed because the franchise and lease agreements each expired. She added that the company did not play a part in that timing.

Groups representing big companies and franchisees have clashed over the bill in what some experts say is one of California’s biggest business battles this year.

The International Franchise Association (IFA), a trade group representing McDonald’s and other well-funded franchisors, led the opposition. They warn that the legislation could weaken a franchisor’s ability to enforce brand standards, damage franchisee equity by protecting weak operators and result in frivolous lawsuits.

Supporters are a coalition that includes the American Association of Franchisees & Dealers and the Service Employees International Union, which has backed fast-food worker protests at franchisee-owned restaurants. They say changes are long overdue and that other states, including Washington, have stronger laws in place.

“It gives us a little bit of protection against termination and retaliation,” said Jaspreet Dhillon, chairman of the California 7-Eleven Franchisee Political Action Committee. “The bill won’t solve everything, but it allows us to sleep at night.”

Franchisor 7-Eleven Inc, owned by Tokyo-based Seven & I Holdings, in the last two years has been hit with roughly a dozen lawsuits in which franchisees alleged that it drummed up reasons to take away their convenience stores.

A 7-Eleven spokeswoman said those allegations are false and that the company ends relationships with the “few franchisees who violate the law or the franchise agreement” to protect other franchisees, employees and customers.

A 2012 franchisee protection bill spearheaded by Slater-Carter died in committee.

California Bill Would Help Protect Franchisee Business Investments [Business Insider]

7-Eleven Takes Big Gulp Out Of American Dream

Via MintPress News

For South Asian immigrants to the United States, owning a 7-Eleven convenience store franchise has traditionally been a passport to the American dream.

The startup costs for a 7-Eleven franchise are low compared to fast-food and motel franchises — as little as $50,000. In a departure from the usual franchising model, the franchisor, 7-Eleven Inc., bears the expense of land, building and store equipment and also charges royalties based on the store’s gross profit, rather than a percentage of sales.

Last year, the National Minority Franchising Initiative included 7-Eleven in its annual list of the Top 50 Franchises for Minorities, commending its “exceptional record” of minority representation. Of the company’s franchise stores, the survey noted, 57 percent were minority-operated.

Just as the dry-cleaning industry is largely controlled by Korean-Americans, immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have gravitated toward 7-Eleven, said Jas Dhillon, the owner of 7-Eleven franchises in the Los Angeles-area communities of Porter Ranch and Pacoima.

“It’s proven to be a success,” he told MintPress News in an interview.

But in a lawsuit filed earlier this month in federal court, a 7-Eleven franchisee group and five individual franchisees, including Dhillon, paint a very different picture, accusing Dallas-based 7-Eleven Inc., which is now owned by a Japanese corporation, of “an aggressive and discriminatory campaign” against South Asian franchisees.

“[A] foreign corporation has been allowed to transform the American Dream into an American Nightmare for countless individuals and families,” the Franchise Owners Association of Greater Los Angeles and its co-plaintiffs allege.

The suit says 7-Eleven management, at the behest of Japan’s Seven & I Holdings Co., has harassed and intimidated franchisees and falsely accused them of wrongdoing “as part of a larger corporate effort to terminate their successful franchise stores and take the stores back at no cost. 7-Eleven then ‘churns’ or re-sells the stores, realizing a windfall profit [from] new franchisees.”

South Asians have been targeted, the plaintiffs say, because of “cultural vulnerabilities” including deference to authority and fear of being shamed if allegations of impropriety become public. In a separate case, Dilip and Saroj Patel, an elderly couple who owned a franchise in Riverside, California, allege they signed away their store in December 2013 after being subjected to an eight-hour interrogation by 7-Eleven “asset protection” investigators.

Continue reading 7-Eleven Takes Big Gulp Out Of American Dream [MintPress News]

This Week In Bizarre 7-Eleven Crimes

Police seek one-eyed man in connection with double killing at 7-Eleven [La Times]

Police: Gunman in killing shot woman through windshield [Fox 5]

Man drives to 7-Eleven, says wife set him on fire [Komo News]

Oakdale defendant in federal custody in child porn case [Modesto Bee]

Show of Force in Lincoln Park After Mom Pushing Stroller Robbed [DNAinfo]

California Franchisees Accuse 7-Eleven of Racial Discrimination

Via LA Times

A new organization of California 7-Eleven franchisees is suing the convenience store chain, alleging the company violated store operators’ civil rights through racial discrimination, as well as other complaints.

The Franchise Owner’s Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, along with other franchisee organizations, says it represents more than 1,200 members who are accusing 7-Eleven Inc. of racial discrimination, invasion of privacy and illegal surveillance and mistreatment.

The suit, filed Friday in federal court in Los Angeles, is the latest list of allegations aimed at the Dallas company, which is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co. in Tokyo.

The group said it does not want any money from 7-eleven, but is asking for a court declaration affirming that 7-Eleven’s actions are in violation of both federal and California state laws.

More than a dozen franchisees around the nation have sued 7-Eleven in the last two years, claiming they were stripped of their stores illegally, without evidence and any compensation. Some plaintiffs say 7-Eleven targeted successful stores in high-traffic areas, then flipped them to new franchisees willing to pay the company higher fees.

Continue reading California Franchisees Accuse 7-Eleven of Racial Discrimination [LA Times]