“…(the defendants) helped illegal workers obtain green cards and Social Security cards…several workers testified that they worked six to seven days a week, from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. with only one two-hour break. Kitchen staff said they were paid in cash. Waiters were not paid but allowed to 
keep their tips…they face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count and may have to give up the profits they earned from the scheme…”
Two brothers who own a popular chain of Mexican restaurants in Maine were convicted Monday of harboring undocumented aliens for profit and aiding and abetting document fraud. Following an eight-day trial, Guillermo Fuentes, 37, of Westbrook and Hector Fuentes, 39, of Waterville were found guilty in U.S. District Court.
The charges stem from practices at the Fajita Grill in Westbrook, the Cancun Mexican Restaurant in Waterville and the Cancun Mexican Restaurant II in Biddeford, between 2006 and 2011.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division and the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General and the Office of Labor Racketeering and Fraud Investigations.
The documents said Roth informed the federal agency that in routine traffic stops in April 2008, Westbrook police officers had pulled over Hispanic men who appeared to work at Fajita Grill, claimed to be from Mexico and could not provide any U.S. identification. During the investigation, James Bell, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security interviewed four illegal workers, all of whom had worked for the Fuentes brothers at a Mexican restaurant in Atlanta called El Potrillo.
