The indictment against two owners and two employees of Colt Grill BBQ & Spirits sheds more light on the three-year federal investigation that stepped into public awareness this week with raids in Foley and Arizona.

The five charges filed May 27 by a grand jury in Phoenix, Arizona, against owners Brenda and Robert Clouston, both 61, and employees Luis Pedro Rogel-Jaimes, 33, and Iris Romero-Molina, 29, are for conspiracy to “encourage and induce” people to enter the U.S. unlawfully; bring them to the U.S.; transport; and harbor them; all while demonstrating a “pattern and practice” of knowingly employing people who don’t have legal status to live and work in the country.

U.S. District Attorney Timothy Courchaine weaves a story of international agreements he alleges involves the creation of a shell company purporting to be a cleaning company that operated as a staffing company for the Colt Grill restaurants, starting in September 2022.

Rogel-Jaimes and Romero-Molina, who are from Mexico and living in the U.S. without legal documentation, would find people in Mexico to work at the restaurants, bringing them to the U.S. and paying them through R&R AZ Cleaning with funds from Colt Grill, a press release from the western state’s district court summarizing the case alleges. The workers were paid below minimum wage and not compensated for overtime.

According to the indictment, the Cloustons, a married couple, owned and operated four Colt Grill locations in Arizona – Sedona, Prescott, Prescott Valley and Cottonwood – with businesses created in 2016, 2019 and 2020. The Foley location, which opened in January, was created in 2023.

The indictment alleges Brenda Clouston is listed as the sole owner of the restaurants with the Arizona and Alabama Secretary of State offices, while Robert was listed as the owner of Colt Grill on a leasing document for a residence in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Rogel-Jaimes and Romero-Molina were both listed as employees as of May 2020.

The case against the four defendants alleges Robert Clouston leased residences to house the workers and vehicles to transport them between the Arizona locations. It alleges he told a manger not to be concerned with receiving required paperwork to properly calculate payment, taxes and worker’s compensation for some newly hired employees, “stating those were ‘Pedro’s people.’”

The Foley restaurant was not mentioned in the Arizona indictment other than stating the Cloustons’ ownership of it as part of the five locations. Also not mentioned were charges specifically related to money laundering,

GCM reported in January that Brenda Clouston worked with the City of Foley and Foley Main Street to bring new life to the old Foley Bakery building at the corner of North Alston Street and West Laurel Avenue, which was built in 1925.

The building renovation included “adding several apartments and a restaurant office on the second floor.”

"We're going to provide employee housing upstairs. As we all know who are in small business, it's difficult to find employees. So that's one of the investments for us. To use those apartments," Clouston said at a Foley Main Street meeting in June 2024 when the restaurant was announced for the first time.

"I believe in using my gifts to help other people, first and foremost," Clouston said at the time. "It's an advantage to build something in the center of town where you can be a light and you can share your gifts with other people. We chose [the location] so that people who came into the restaurant would not only have a good experience, but that they would use their resources on the menu."

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and other law enforcement agencies executed 28 federal search warrants at five Colt Grill restaurants and 12 residences across the two states. All four defendants were arrested Tuesday without incident, according to the district court office.

Agents seized boxes of files from the Foley site Tuesday.

While executing the warrants, law enforcement also arrested several other employees for alleged criminal or administrative immigration violations, Christopher Fox Graham with the Sedona Red Rock News reported.

“Over 20 immigration related arrests also took place, but that number has not been finalized as interviews are ongoing,” HSI Southwest Deputy Communications Chief Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe wrote in an email to Graham July 15.

O’Keefe wrote in an email to Gulf Coast Media July 16 that five people “were arrested yesterday in Foley, AL, but that number is subject to change as the investigation is ongoing.”

Convictions of any of the conspiracy charges carry a maximum 10 years of imprisonment and up to $250,000 in fines, and a conviction for the charge of knowingly employing undocumented workers in the U.S. carries a maximum six months in prison and $3,000 in fines per such employee.