Most Wanted SOB

EU NEWS -- A Ukrainian naturalized United States citizen, Veniamin Yakovlevich Gonikman, is most wanted for human trafficking. Gonikman along with another man, Duay Jado, were both indicted on March 9, 2006 by a federal grand jury in Detroit, Illinois for conspiring to force Eastern European women to work in the commercial sex industry as exotic dancers in Metro-Detroit area strip clubs.

Follow up:

The two men are believed to have been part of a larger human trafficking operation that utilized their company, Beauty Search Inc., to smuggle women into the United States, and forced them through threats and coercion to work as strippers in a condition of involuntary servitude. Gonikman, was charged with twenty counts of involuntary servitude, immigration and money laundering conspiracies, including counts of forced labor, human trafficking, and document servitude.

Additionally, the human trafficking operation was uncovered when two of the Eastern European women escaped captivity and brought their conditions of involuntary servitude to the attention of the police. It was also alleged that Gonikman’s son, Aleksandr Maksimenko, who was named in an earlier indictment along with eight others were responsible for smuggling the women into the United States. In order to maintain the women’s compliance and create a condition of captivity. The human traffickers confiscated passports, imposed large debts and monetary penalties on them, enforced rules to isolate the women from potential rescuers, physically assaulted and threatened them, conducted apartment searches, and threatened to turn the dancers over to authorities because of their illegal immigrant status. Maksimenko, also allegedly forced the dancers to engage in sexual relations with him, by intimidating and threatening them with arrest and deportation while reminding them that they owed him a debt for employing them.

In February 2004, after the escape of one of the dancers, Maksimenko paid Jado to set fire to a car owned by the woman’s sister in retaliation for her escape. The crime was perpetrated to also send a message to the other dancers not to escape or fail to repay their debt. Maksimenko, was eventually convicted for his part in the conspiracy and agreed to roll over and cooperate with the U.S. Department of Justice investigation and prosecution of the human trafficking operation’s partners including his father, Gonikman, who is still at-large.

Gonikman is described as follows:

• Birth Date: September 6, 1955
• POB: Kiev, Ukraine
• Age: 53
• Height: 5’9"
• Weight: 185 pounds
• Eyes: Green
• Hair: Brown
• Complexion: Medium
• Sex: Male
• Race: White

If you have information about the whereabouts Veniamin Yakovlevich Gonikman, a most wanted fugitive for human trafficking, do not attempt to apprehend him yourself! Instead immediately contact your local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office or call 1-866-DHS-2-ICE.