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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Deaf-Slave Ring May Be Widespread

Compiled From Wire Services

Federal investigators said on Tuesday that they believe a band of Mexicans accused of forcing dozens of deaf immigrants into virtual slavery as peddlers in New York City helped run a similar operation in Los Angeles and perhaps in as many as three other cities in the United States.

They said that leads about other possible operations, apparently connected to the same extended family charged in the New York case, had come through interviews with the 57 deaf victims in New York and their relatives in Mexico. Five of the seven suspects charged in New York were members of the same family, based in Mexico City.

“Los Angeles is clearly the city of greatest interest to us right now,” one federal investigator, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said. “We expect there will be two or three more arrests very soon in New York and then more in California.”

The officials described their investigations elsewhere - in Chicago, Boston and an unidentified city in Connecticut - as preliminary. But they said the victims in New York had provided them with information that allowed them to create a list of other cities where similar rings were operating or had operated.