Posted on January 11, 2018

Police Break Up Slave Labor Operation That Used Children to Run Fish Markets Around Fayetteville

Martha Quillin, News-Observer, January 10, 2018

Police have arrested four people and are searching for six more on charges that they used the slave labor of children as young as 9 to run a series of fish markets in the Fayetteville area.

Some of the victims were children of the operators or managers of the fish markets, according to a release.

Lt. Sean E. Swain, public information officer for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, said that the department got a report in February 2017 that “an alternative religious group” was living on and around a property commonly referred to as McCollum Ranch, at 5953 McCollum Road in Godwin. The leader of the religious group is John C. McCollum, who has been a preacher in Fayetteville since at least the late 1980s.

“The investigation initiated by the Sheriff’s Office based on the information provided in the report revealed that John C McCollum and others were operating at least three John C’s Fish Markets and mobile grills in Fayetteville, and one John C’s Fish Market in Lumberton, in an effort to profit and additionally fund the communal property,” the release said. “Several former residents of the McCollum Ranch, during interviews, said that McCollum and others were holding children, ages ranging from 9 years old to 17 years old, in involuntary servitude. The children had to work full time in the fish markets with little to no compensation. The children are performing labor such as lifting heavy boxes/shipments (reportedly some weighing approximately 50 lbs), keeping fish iced, cutting fish and cleaning; additionally, many of the children were performing construction and maintenance on the mobile grills after fish market hours. The former residents also informed investigators that the children were not attending school and were being denied adequate education and care.”

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Swain said that in interviews with the children, officers found that the children were being held in “involuntary servitude by means of force, fraud or coercion, for profiting and funding the McCollum Ranch.”

Swain said the children were living on the ranch with their mothers and/or guardians, who were also agents or managers of the criminal enterprise affiliated with the fish markets.

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Charges against those involved in the activities of the ranch include:

▪ continuing criminal enterprise.
▪ involuntary servitude of a minor.
▪ obtaining property by false pretense.
▪ conspiracy.

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Four of the 10 suspects were arrested about two weeks ago. John McCollum, Cornelia McDonald, Brenda Hall and Pamela Puga Luna are currently being held on secured bonds in the Cumberland County Detention Center.

The other six suspects — Shirley McNatt, Daffene Edge, Kassia Rogers, Irish Williams, Shirnitka McNatt and Earlene Hayat — are all wanted for outstanding warrants for their arrest. Swain said officers had planned to arrest the six on Tuesday during a Social Services hearing, but none of them attended.

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Swain said the children often injured themselves while cutting fish for sale in the market or to be used in McCollum’s food trucks and catering operation.

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John C. McCollum (top left) is the leader of the group.