Wahid, Kabir Charged in NJ Chicken Slaughterhouse Trafficking Ring

Two New York men, Mohammad Abdul Wahid, 54, of Queens, and Mohammed Iqbal Kabir, 42, of Bronx, are behind bars on federal charges tied to a brutal forced labor scheme at a Halal chicken slaughterhouse in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. From July 2011 to January 2016, the pair allegedly ran a gruesome underground operation where undocumented workers were exploited, threatened, and forced to live in squalor—all for the sake of profit.

The workers, many of them undocumented, were paid a flat $290 a week in cash while clocking 70 to 100 hours—six or seven days a week. No overtime. No benefits. No rights. Rent of $40 a week was deducted from their meager paychecks for a boarding house located in front of the slaughterhouse, a place so foul it had no heat, no hot water, and swarmed with insects. This was not employment—it was enslavement under the guise of religious practice.

Wahid and Kabir didn’t just exploit their workers—they terrorized them. Two Muslim slaughterhouse employees who raised concerns about unsafe conditions—lack of gloves, masks, or proper sanitation—were threatened with police calls. Knowing their immigration status made them vulnerable, the victims stayed silent and kept working, paralyzed by fear of arrest and deportation. The abuse only ended when health inspectors shut the facility for violations.

Federal prosecutors unsealed a criminal complaint charging both men with one count each of conspiracy to commit forced labor (human trafficking), conspiracy to harbor undocumented persons for financial gain, and violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Each count carries severe penalties: up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for human trafficking; up to 10 years and the same fine for harboring; and up to six months plus a $10,000 fine for labor law violations.

Appearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph A. Dickson in Newark federal court, Wahid and Kabir were released on $75,000 unsecured bonds each, ordered into home confinement with electronic monitoring. But the damage, federal officials say, cannot be undone. “This is precisely the kind of case the ACTeams were designed to investigate and prosecute,” said U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, emphasizing the coordinated crackdown by the Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam).

The case was spearheaded by the New Jersey ACTeam, one of only six Phase II federal units selected nationwide through a joint initiative by the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Labor. “The Department of Justice is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to seek justice on behalf of vulnerable victims of human trafficking,” said Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division. For the workers in Perth Amboy, justice is long overdue.