In an operation targeting suspected labor trafficking, FBI Atlanta said in a statement that it is executing federal search warrants at Wellmade Industries in Cartersville, Georgia, and several residences throughout Bartow County, Georgia.

The investigation, conducted in partnership with Homeland Security Investigations, the Bartow County Sheriff's Office, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, focuses on allegations that Wellmade Industries used fraud and coercion to induce Chinese nationals and other immigrants to work.

Zhu Chen owns Wellmade, according to Georgia Secretary of State licensing records, and the manufacturing facility was founded in Cartersville in 2019. Chen is being held at Bartow County jail. 

In 2020, Georgia Governor Brian P. Kemp announced that Portland, Oregon-based Wellmade Flooring would invest more than $35 million in expanding its manufacturing facilities to Bartow County, delivering 240 jobs to the area. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, Wellmade is an OEM supplier that first began manufacturing SPC flooring in China. 

The FBI has deployed 20 linguists and a victim specialist to assist dozens of potential victims at the scene. Officials emphasized that despite the significant law enforcement presence in and around Cartersville, public safety is not immediately threatened.

Labor trafficking represents only 6 percent of the FBI's human trafficking cases nationwide, with sex trafficking accounting for the remaining 93 percent. However, authorities note these statistics may be misleading because labor trafficking is often harder to identify since the underlying work itself is not illegal.

As of July last year, the FBI had 1,660 pending human trafficking investigations across the nation. Between October 2022 and September 2023, the bureau opened 664 new human trafficking investigations. The FBI urges the public to report suspected human trafficking to law enforcement or submit information to tips.fbi.gov. Tips can also be sent to the HSI Tipline at 877-4-HIS-TIP.