AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) – Three men have been sentenced to federal prison as part of a broad investigation into what authorities said was a wide-ranging conspiracy to bring workers from Central America to the United States for forced labor on south Georgia farms.

Authorities said the farm workers were brought into the United States on the H-2A agricultural visa program and then the men profited from their work by underpaying them and forcing them to live in substandard conditions.

“These men engaged in facilitating modern-day slavery,” U.S. Attorney David Estes said in a news release. “Our law enforcement partners have exposed an underworld of human trafficking, and we will continue to identify and bring to justice those who would exploit others whose labors provide the fuel for their greed.”

Javier Sanchez Mendoza Jr., 24, of Jesup, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in forced labor and was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison. Aurelio Medina, 42, of Brunswick, pleaded guilty to forced labor and was sentenced to five years and four months. Yordon Velazquez Victoria, 45, of Brunswick, received a sentence of 15 months after pleading guilty to conspiracy.

Mendoza and Medina are Mexican citizens living illegally in the United States and are subject to deportation once they serve their prison terms, prosecutors said.

Mendoza admitted that from August 2018 to November 2019, he was a leader in a scheme to provide labor and services for farms and other businesses in Glynn, Ware and Pierce counties, the release said. He recruited more than 500 people from Central America and unlawfully charged them for H-2A visas and withheld their identification papers and forced them to work for little or no pay in terrible conditions by threatening them and their families back home, prosecutors said.

One victim testified during sentencing that Mendoza picked her from a work crew after she arrived from Mexico and brought her to live with him, making her believe falsely that she had married him. He controlled her using threats and intimidation, repeatedly raping her, for more than a year, prosecutors said.

After she escaped, Mendoza kidnapped her at knifepoint from the front yard of a home where she was babysitting, prosecutors said.