Princeton police charge 4 in human trafficking scheme; more arrests expected
PRINCETON, Texas - Four people are charged with allegedly running a ‘forced labor’ scheme out of Collin County.
The arrests came after authorities found more than a dozen young women living in the same home forced to sleep on the floor.
Police say there was basically no furniture inside the home at the center of human trafficking, just a bunch of computer electronics and blankets.
The Princeton Police Department is now releasing details of an investigation that led to four people being arrested in March after 15 women were found inside the home as alleged victims of human labor trafficking.
According to an affidavit, a pest control company was called to a home on Ginsburg Lane for possible bed bugs.
Once inside, the inspector noticed that "each room… had 3-5 young females sleeping on the floors." There were also "large amounts of suitcases."
The company contacted police.
Princeton Police Sgt. Carolyn Crawford would not reveal what type of labor operation was happening, but she says dozens of more people are involved.
"I can probably say over 100. Easily," she said.
Of those 100 people, more than half are victims, according to the sergeant.
As for the others, more arrests are expected.
For now, Chandan Dasireddy, 24, Dwaraka Gunda, 31, Santhosh Katkoori, 31, and Anil Male, 37, are all charged with trafficking of persons.
Princeton Police Chief James Waters says his team has been working leads with federal investigators for several months.
"How we came across this situation was very unique," he said. "They would unravel just a multitude of other clues and a multitude of other scenes that was going out there."
Police also say addresses in McKinney, Melissa and other cities were allegedly involved in the forced labor operation.
Neighbors are stunned.
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"What was going on before we even moved in here? It’s kind of really dark to think about," said neighbor Steven Watkins. "We had no idea about anything."
"I would’ve never thought that something like this was going on like a few houses down from mine," said neighbor Herbert Logan.
For now, police will not reveal where the victims are from, how they became forced into work and if they had opportunities to escape.
Tuesday, an attorney for Katkoori released the following statement:
"These workers were in the IT field and nothing about this was forced labor.
Princeton PD has taken a "shoot-first, aim-later" approach. As a simple example, they claim to have seized computers, studied the details of the operation, then made arrests. But they arrested Mr. Katkoori on the same day they took his computer and only a day after the initial report - a fact easily verifiable on the county website.
We're not privy to details of the investigation, but I'm sure we'll find even more inconsistencies because Santhosh is innocent of human trafficking. We won't litigate this in public, and we only ask people to withhold judgment."