Texas welfare audit reveals forced labor – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Princeton police said Monday that they discovered a large human trafficking operation in Collin County earlier this spring while investigating a welfare report.

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by NBC 5, Princeton police said a pest control company called March 13 to deal with bed bugs at a home on the 1000 block of Ginsburg Lane reported a “suspicious circumstance” and requested a welfare check.

While investigating the report, Princeton police obtained a search warrant for Santhosh Katkoori's home. Once inside, police discovered 15 adult women who they said had been forced to work for various shell companies owned by Katkoori and his wife, Dwaraka Gunda.

According to investigators, the victims, both women and men, worked as programmers. During the search of the home on Ginsburg Lane, several laptops, phones, printers and false documents were seized.

Princeton police later said they learned that the forced labor operation was taking place at multiple locations in the cities of Princeton, Melissa and McKinney. Additional laptops, phones and documents were later seized at other locations.

The police statement did not provide addresses of those other locations or details about the nature of the programming work done for the couple's alleged screen partnerships.

An arrest affidavit obtained by NBC 5 said Princeton police were tipped off to the operation by Arrow Pest Control, which had been called to the home to treat bed bugs. After leaving the home, the technician reported what he had seen in the home, and that information was passed on to police. In an interview with detectives, the technician confirmed that he had seen 15-20 young women sleeping on bedrolls in various rooms. He also said he had seen many suitcases in the living room and no furniture in the home other than folding tables.

According to the affidavit, the women in the home later told police they had been taken to Princeton for an “internship,” where they would apply for jobs and learn Javascript. Police said that once the girls had jobs, the money from those jobs went directly to the homeowner’s company. The homeowner, police said, kept 20 percent of the money the women earned and then gave them the rest.

Princeton police said Monday that after detectives analyzed all of the seized electronics and confirmed the nature of the operation, they have issued arrest warrants for four individuals who are now charged with human trafficking, a second-degree felony.

Police identified the suspects as 31-year-old Santhosh Katkoori of Melissa; 31-year-old Dwaraka Gunda of Melissa; 24-year-old Chandan Dasireddy of Melissa; and 37-year-old Anil Male of Prosper. It is unclear whether any of the four accused have retained a lawyer to speak on their behalf.

Princeton police said additional charges are pending against multiple parties as this investigation continues. Anyone with information about the labor trafficking or who has been a victim of human/labor trafficking is asked to call Princeton police at 972-736-3901 or dial 911 immediately.