MIAMI, Fla. – Two Ukrainian nationals appeared in court on September 23, 2024 in relation to a superseding indictment which was returned by a federal grand jury in Miami. They are charged with crimes related to labor-staffing companies that they operated in Florida. The men were extradited from Thailand last week.
According to a press release from the United States Department of Justice, between August 2007 and July 2021, Oleg Oliynyk, Oleksandr Yurchyk and other unnamed individuals owned and operated a series of labor-staffing companies in South Florida including Paradise Choice LLC, Paradise Choice Cleaning LLC, Tropical City Services LLC and Tropical City Group LLC. The indictment accuses the defendants of facilitating the employment of nonresident aliens who were not authorized to work in the U.S. Additionally, Oliynyk and Yurchyk are accused of conspiring to defraud the IRS by not withholding Social Security, Medicare and income taxes from the paychecks of the nonresident aliens that they employed and causing false corporate tax returns for their labor-staffing companies to be filed with the IRS.
The defendants were charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to harbor nonresident aliens and induce them to remain in the country and conspiracy to commit money laundering. If convicted, the defendants face a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison on the charge of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison on the charge of conspiracy to harbor aliens and induce them to remain in the U.S. and a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison on the charge of money laundering.
Persons accused of crimes are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.