Mexico City – Serafín Bayona was exposed after an ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence. The young Mexican woman said he had hit her on several occasions, but that this was not his only crime .
He confessed to U.S. authorities something even more disturbing: the man was a human trafficker who, upon arrival in the United States, enslaved people at gunpoint and with threats. At MILENIO , we tell you about the case that affected the lives of hundreds of migrants.
How did Bayona operate?
That's how those investigating him obtained in 2022 the testimony of another woman, a Mexican woman who said that at that time she paid Serafín Bayona 10 thousand dollars to smuggle her across the border and then to Lexington, in Kentucky, where, according to him, he would have a secure job for her .
Thanks to this account, they learned of other victims: a pair of Mexican sisters who described the trafficker's modus operandi. In Mexico, they were charged 250,000 pesos , and the crossing was made from Sonora to Phoenix, Arizona .
They stayed there for a week, and then Bayona himself moved them to Lexington, where this exploiter also lived. They thought that upon arriving, they would finally live the American dream , but that didn't happen, and instead they became the protagonists of a master-slave story in the 21st century.
During the journey, the human trafficker informed them that – a small detail – he had forgotten to tell them that there would be an additional charge of 120,000 pesos for “other fees and interest for the border crossing”.
He also said that for every month they were late in paying him, a 10 percent interest would be added. However, he reassured them: he promised that he himself would find them jobs .
Court records reviewed by MILENIO reveal that the sisters worked in a factory where Bayona had connections. They were also forced to move into an apartment owned by the trafficker , where they were crammed together with 13 other immigrants who, they would later learn, were living in conditions of slavery, paying the fictitious interest rates imposed by Bayona.
In total, 35 people were being exploited for labor at that location.
The trafficker, who was also residing illegally, even managed to get a place called Orbis Factories, in Georgetown, Kentucky, to deposit the migrants' wages directly into his account .
“He would collect the checks of everyone who had a contract with him on Fridays (…) I have been able to keep very little of the money I have earned at my job because of the fees Bayona charges and I have not been able to send anything to Mexico for my children,” one of the sisters stated in a court document from the Eastern District of Kentucky.
They paid $100 weekly for food, $500 monthly for rent, $370 for transportation to the factory, and $120 every seven days for house cleaning, although the sisters made sure to live as cleanly as possible in the deplorable places where they stayed.
The Bayonne ledgers: unpayable debts
The victims described with terror the notebooks that Bayona carried : a small notebook where he recorded the payments he received for the "border crossing interest" and another large one with the total debt, which never decreased due to the accumulating interest.
The woman, who testified that she arrived with her sister, said that she was not only enslaved by the man, but that he had also attempted to sexually assault her on occasion . She said it was a common practice that some women accepted in order to receive some benefit in reducing their debt to the human trafficker.
“I told Bayona that I wanted to leave and return to Mexico, and he told me that if I left, he would send people to kill my mother ,” the victim recalls.
The man hinted to his captives that he was connected to criminal cartels in Mexico . In fact, he constantly threatened his recruits with a firearm to warn them of the risks if they tried to escape.
But in July 2023, life took a dramatic turn for all the migrant women this man was enslaving, as four victims managed to escape . In response, Bayona launched a manhunt across Kentucky, but several migrants seized the opportunity and dared to become protected witnesses, ultimately leading to the capture of the human trafficker.
But that didn't happen immediately, because Bayona terrorized his victims by assuring them that he had ordered the murders of their loved ones in Mexico.
The capture of the “master”
This newspaper reviewed cases of Forced Labor , that is, forced labor , or as some international organizations call it, modern slavery .
Thus, it was found in federal courts and in the Department of Labor that, in the last five years, at least 45 slave owners have been brought to justice in the United States.
The exploited people are migrants of Latin origin , mainly Mexicans or Salvadorans, although some cases of Brazilians and Cubans were also found.
Of the 45 cases that came to light, it was found that on 32 occasions the slave owners forced their victims to work in the fields ; seven episodes occurred in domestic work; one in a restaurant; another in construction and three others in laundries.
Thus, the places where they were exploited included factories, agricultural fields, private homes, and restaurants. There, they were coerced into working in deplorable conditions , charged exorbitant and fictitious taxes, and even threatened with death or being reported for being undocumented.
After the migrants' escape in 2023, a protected witness revealed that Bayona began behaving even more violently . Although the informant gave the criminal his entire salary, $900 a week, it was never enough. When he once gave him slightly less money, the slave trader exploded, swearing that if it happened again, he would kill his family .
The threats were accompanied by acts of intimidation: around that time, the worker's relatives began receiving ominous phone calls . Another victim said that the employer had threatened to kill his father, who, in fact, was found dead shortly afterward from a gunshot wound in Mexico.
Bayona 's criminal career came to an end in 2025 when he was finally captured. Faced with a sea of evidence, the slave trader pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years in prison .
They exploited in homes and even at McDonald's
Cases like the one above are abundant in the migrant community , which is in need of work and money.
This was the story of Jairo John Gastelo , 45, and his wife Carolina Rojas , 50, Peruvian migrants who were also part of a criminal organization that exploited foreign workers . According to the indictment in the Central District of California, they first recruited them in Peru, offering to finance their journey to California.
These slave owners assured that they could pay off their relocation debt little by little , and even that they could find work on their own.
However, the court records consulted describe how the exploiters took the migrants to their private residence , from where they were not allowed to leave and where they were forced to help children and people who required special care.
The newcomers became domestic servants , with the drawback that they were not paid a single dollar ; they were told that their job only covered lodging in their home.
On other occasions, the immigrants were placed in McDonald's restaurants in Simi Valley, California, where the couple had an agreement with the manager to hire workers. Rojas and the McDonald's employee obtained false papers so they could work, bypassing the authorities' checks.
And once again, when payday came, Gastelo and Rojas would take them to a place to cash the check and keep practically their entire salary for "interest" on crossing into the United States.
“Through threats of causing serious harm they made them believe that, if they did not perform said work and services, they would suffer serious harm.”
Finally, in February 2025, the couple was charged with slavery in a California court.
And of course, slavery in the harvests
Another place where migrants have historically been enslaved is in agricultural fields . In fact, 32 people have been arrested and charged with slavery in these areas of the United States, where workers live in extremely precarious conditions.
There are cases like that of Enrique Balcazar and his daughter Elizabeth Balcazar – they are only 16 years apart, he is 37 and she is 21 – who, through a company called Balcazar Nature Harvesting (BNH), enslaved Mexican migrants .
This company provided temporary agricultural labor to farms in Lexington County, South Carolina.
According to the indictment, in early 2021, the defendants created the company and obtained authorization from the Department of Labor to hire foreign agricultural labor , committing on paper to offer certain working conditions to their workers.
With that endorsement in hand, Elizabeth traveled to Mexico and recruited 55 people to work for Balcazar Nature Harvesting in Lexington County, repeating the same old promises. Each of the recruits obtained an H-2A visa for temporary agricultural workers, which was supposed to allow them to work legally in the United States.
Elizabeth returned with them by bus to Lexington and, along with her father, drove them to a camp in Batesburg, where they would live and work for them. On the very day of their arrival, Henry and Elizabeth confiscated their passports and visas .
Instead of the 40 hours per week they had been promised, the victims ended up working almost twice as many hours , and in some weeks, up to 90 hours. The Balcázars only paid them the equivalent of 40 hours , so a significant portion of their workday went unpaid.
In addition to failing to pay the agreed salary, the company charged them illegal transfers of costs for transportation, visas, food, and even the equipment necessary to work.
Enrique resorted to force and coercion to keep the workers at his company. In addition to withholding their passports and visas, he threatened them with deportation , carried and fired firearms, denied them medical attention , had locks placed on the dormitories, and posted armed guards at the camp.
The Southern District Court of Carolina sentenced Enrique Balcazar to 40 months in prison and several fines . His daughter was ordered to perform community service on behalf of migrants and was required to pay $508,000 to the 55 workers who were victims of his exploitation.
Exploitative American businessmen
In these cases there is one where the slave owner's last name is not Latin, and it is that of Stavros Papantoniadis , originally from Massachusetts and owner of Stash's Pizza, a chain of pizzerias in that state.
This man recruited workers , mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Brazil, who lacked immigration status and authorization to work in the United States.
Papantoniadis employed the victims with low wages or, in some cases, simply chose not to pay them at all . He demanded that they work six or seven days a week, without rest, and threatened to alert U.S. immigration authorities so they could be arrested.
The businessman told the victims that the police would believe someone like him , with his pizza chain, more than them, who lacked immigration status.
“When asked for breaks, days off, back pay, raises, or when he learned that a victim was planning to quit, Papantoniadis exerted control over the victims ,” the indictment against him says.
Papantoniadis, himself of Greek origin, was particularly harsh with newly arrived workers . For example, when one of them asked for time off, he would remind them of their immigration status and end the conversation by saying:
“Damn immigrants, I’m not here for you.”
Maeve - 1day
No one can ever convince me the US government isn't aware of this, or that they aren't complicit. All the deportations of migrant workers, admin after admin, and how many of the employers are imprisoned, shut down, or had to pay more than a laughable minimum fine?
rainpizza in latestagecapitalism
The master's notebooks: 45 slave traders of Latino migrants captured in the US
https://www.milenio.com/internacional/trabajo-forzado-en-eu-esclavistas-capturan-migrantes-latinosMexico City – Serafín Bayona was exposed after an ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence. The young Mexican woman said he had hit her on several occasions, but that this was not his only crime .
He confessed to U.S. authorities something even more disturbing: the man was a human trafficker who, upon arrival in the United States, enslaved people at gunpoint and with threats. At MILENIO , we tell you about the case that affected the lives of hundreds of migrants.
How did Bayona operate?
That's how those investigating him obtained in 2022 the testimony of another woman, a Mexican woman who said that at that time she paid Serafín Bayona 10 thousand dollars to smuggle her across the border and then to Lexington, in Kentucky, where, according to him, he would have a secure job for her .
Thanks to this account, they learned of other victims: a pair of Mexican sisters who described the trafficker's modus operandi. In Mexico, they were charged 250,000 pesos , and the crossing was made from Sonora to Phoenix, Arizona .
They stayed there for a week, and then Bayona himself moved them to Lexington, where this exploiter also lived. They thought that upon arriving, they would finally live the American dream , but that didn't happen, and instead they became the protagonists of a master-slave story in the 21st century.
During the journey, the human trafficker informed them that – a small detail – he had forgotten to tell them that there would be an additional charge of 120,000 pesos for “other fees and interest for the border crossing”.
He also said that for every month they were late in paying him, a 10 percent interest would be added. However, he reassured them: he promised that he himself would find them jobs .
Court records reviewed by MILENIO reveal that the sisters worked in a factory where Bayona had connections. They were also forced to move into an apartment owned by the trafficker , where they were crammed together with 13 other immigrants who, they would later learn, were living in conditions of slavery, paying the fictitious interest rates imposed by Bayona.
In total, 35 people were being exploited for labor at that location.
https://d9596brzmlkii8.archive.ph/67xFy/a3f432f135c44e32360fc5517a45dae4b7dfa782.jpg
The trafficker, who was also residing illegally, even managed to get a place called Orbis Factories, in Georgetown, Kentucky, to deposit the migrants' wages directly into his account .
“He would collect the checks of everyone who had a contract with him on Fridays (…) I have been able to keep very little of the money I have earned at my job because of the fees Bayona charges and I have not been able to send anything to Mexico for my children,” one of the sisters stated in a court document from the Eastern District of Kentucky.
They paid $100 weekly for food, $500 monthly for rent, $370 for transportation to the factory, and $120 every seven days for house cleaning, although the sisters made sure to live as cleanly as possible in the deplorable places where they stayed.
The Bayonne ledgers: unpayable debts
The victims described with terror the notebooks that Bayona carried : a small notebook where he recorded the payments he received for the "border crossing interest" and another large one with the total debt, which never decreased due to the accumulating interest.
The woman, who testified that she arrived with her sister, said that she was not only enslaved by the man, but that he had also attempted to sexually assault her on occasion . She said it was a common practice that some women accepted in order to receive some benefit in reducing their debt to the human trafficker.
“I told Bayona that I wanted to leave and return to Mexico, and he told me that if I left, he would send people to kill my mother ,” the victim recalls.
The man hinted to his captives that he was connected to criminal cartels in Mexico . In fact, he constantly threatened his recruits with a firearm to warn them of the risks if they tried to escape.
But in July 2023, life took a dramatic turn for all the migrant women this man was enslaving, as four victims managed to escape . In response, Bayona launched a manhunt across Kentucky, but several migrants seized the opportunity and dared to become protected witnesses, ultimately leading to the capture of the human trafficker.
But that didn't happen immediately, because Bayona terrorized his victims by assuring them that he had ordered the murders of their loved ones in Mexico.
The capture of the “master”
This newspaper reviewed cases of Forced Labor , that is, forced labor , or as some international organizations call it, modern slavery . Thus, it was found in federal courts and in the Department of Labor that, in the last five years, at least 45 slave owners have been brought to justice in the United States.
The exploited people are migrants of Latin origin , mainly Mexicans or Salvadorans, although some cases of Brazilians and Cubans were also found.
Of the 45 cases that came to light, it was found that on 32 occasions the slave owners forced their victims to work in the fields ; seven episodes occurred in domestic work; one in a restaurant; another in construction and three others in laundries.
Thus, the places where they were exploited included factories, agricultural fields, private homes, and restaurants. There, they were coerced into working in deplorable conditions , charged exorbitant and fictitious taxes, and even threatened with death or being reported for being undocumented.
After the migrants' escape in 2023, a protected witness revealed that Bayona began behaving even more violently . Although the informant gave the criminal his entire salary, $900 a week, it was never enough. When he once gave him slightly less money, the slave trader exploded, swearing that if it happened again, he would kill his family .
The threats were accompanied by acts of intimidation: around that time, the worker's relatives began receiving ominous phone calls . Another victim said that the employer had threatened to kill his father, who, in fact, was found dead shortly afterward from a gunshot wound in Mexico.
Bayona 's criminal career came to an end in 2025 when he was finally captured. Faced with a sea of evidence, the slave trader pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years in prison .
They exploited in homes and even at McDonald's
Cases like the one above are abundant in the migrant community , which is in need of work and money.
This was the story of Jairo John Gastelo , 45, and his wife Carolina Rojas , 50, Peruvian migrants who were also part of a criminal organization that exploited foreign workers . According to the indictment in the Central District of California, they first recruited them in Peru, offering to finance their journey to California.
These slave owners assured that they could pay off their relocation debt little by little , and even that they could find work on their own.
However, the court records consulted describe how the exploiters took the migrants to their private residence , from where they were not allowed to leave and where they were forced to help children and people who required special care.
The newcomers became domestic servants , with the drawback that they were not paid a single dollar ; they were told that their job only covered lodging in their home.
On other occasions, the immigrants were placed in McDonald's restaurants in Simi Valley, California, where the couple had an agreement with the manager to hire workers. Rojas and the McDonald's employee obtained false papers so they could work, bypassing the authorities' checks.
And once again, when payday came, Gastelo and Rojas would take them to a place to cash the check and keep practically their entire salary for "interest" on crossing into the United States.
“Through threats of causing serious harm they made them believe that, if they did not perform said work and services, they would suffer serious harm.”
Finally, in February 2025, the couple was charged with slavery in a California court.
And of course, slavery in the harvests
Another place where migrants have historically been enslaved is in agricultural fields . In fact, 32 people have been arrested and charged with slavery in these areas of the United States, where workers live in extremely precarious conditions.
There are cases like that of Enrique Balcazar and his daughter Elizabeth Balcazar – they are only 16 years apart, he is 37 and she is 21 – who, through a company called Balcazar Nature Harvesting (BNH), enslaved Mexican migrants .
This company provided temporary agricultural labor to farms in Lexington County, South Carolina.
According to the indictment, in early 2021, the defendants created the company and obtained authorization from the Department of Labor to hire foreign agricultural labor , committing on paper to offer certain working conditions to their workers.
With that endorsement in hand, Elizabeth traveled to Mexico and recruited 55 people to work for Balcazar Nature Harvesting in Lexington County, repeating the same old promises. Each of the recruits obtained an H-2A visa for temporary agricultural workers, which was supposed to allow them to work legally in the United States.
Elizabeth returned with them by bus to Lexington and, along with her father, drove them to a camp in Batesburg, where they would live and work for them. On the very day of their arrival, Henry and Elizabeth confiscated their passports and visas .
Instead of the 40 hours per week they had been promised, the victims ended up working almost twice as many hours , and in some weeks, up to 90 hours. The Balcázars only paid them the equivalent of 40 hours , so a significant portion of their workday went unpaid.
In addition to failing to pay the agreed salary, the company charged them illegal transfers of costs for transportation, visas, food, and even the equipment necessary to work.
Enrique resorted to force and coercion to keep the workers at his company. In addition to withholding their passports and visas, he threatened them with deportation , carried and fired firearms, denied them medical attention , had locks placed on the dormitories, and posted armed guards at the camp.
https://d9596brzmlkii8.archive.ph/67xFy/67f5b0d0912b9e9481782eb9f595f1c0438cc233.jpg
Finally, the workers began to escape .
The Southern District Court of Carolina sentenced Enrique Balcazar to 40 months in prison and several fines . His daughter was ordered to perform community service on behalf of migrants and was required to pay $508,000 to the 55 workers who were victims of his exploitation.
Exploitative American businessmen
In these cases there is one where the slave owner's last name is not Latin, and it is that of Stavros Papantoniadis , originally from Massachusetts and owner of Stash's Pizza, a chain of pizzerias in that state.
This man recruited workers , mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Brazil, who lacked immigration status and authorization to work in the United States.
Papantoniadis employed the victims with low wages or, in some cases, simply chose not to pay them at all . He demanded that they work six or seven days a week, without rest, and threatened to alert U.S. immigration authorities so they could be arrested.
The businessman told the victims that the police would believe someone like him , with his pizza chain, more than them, who lacked immigration status.
“When asked for breaks, days off, back pay, raises, or when he learned that a victim was planning to quit, Papantoniadis exerted control over the victims ,” the indictment against him says.
Papantoniadis, himself of Greek origin, was particularly harsh with newly arrived workers . For example, when one of them asked for time off, he would remind them of their immigration status and end the conversation by saying:
“Damn immigrants, I’m not here for you.”
No one can ever convince me the US government isn't aware of this, or that they aren't complicit. All the deportations of migrant workers, admin after admin, and how many of the employers are imprisoned, shut down, or had to pay more than a laughable minimum fine?