(Kim Jarrett, The Center Square) An operation at the HL-GA battery site in south Georgia’s Bryan County netted 475 arrests of mostly Koreans, Steven Schrank, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations for Georgia and Alabama, said Friday.
The arrests are the largest single-site investigation in the history of Homeland Security, Schrank said.
The arrests are the result of a months-long investigation into the hiring practices at a construction site of a battery facility that is jointly owned by Hyundai and LG Energy Solutions.
“This was not a immigration operation where agents went onto the premises, rounded up folks and put them on buses,” Schrank said. “This has been a multi-month criminal investigation where we have developed evidence, conducted interviews, gathered documents and presented that evidence to the court in order to obtain a judicial search warrant.”
No criminal charges have been filed but the investigation is ongoing, Schrank said in a press conference streamed on Savannah’s WTOC.
“As we had determined through our investigation in advance and certainly yesterday, there was a network of subcontractors and subcontractors for the subcontractors there, so the employees worked for a variety of different companies that were on the site,” Schrank said. “It was not just for the parent company but also the subcontractors.”
The Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution announced the battery plant in 2023. The plant will produce batteries for vehicles produced by the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America.
The FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Georgia State Patrol were also involved, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a social media post that included a photo of the operations.
South Korean officials acknowledged that Koreans were detained.
“The economic activities of Korean investment companies and the rights and interests of Korean citizens must not be unfairly infringed upon during U.S. law enforcement operations,” the foreign ministry said in a statement reported by the BBC.
South Korean officials are on their way to the site, according to the statement.
