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[Homeland Security Investigations] agents spent days last March secretly interviewing Haitian cane cutters, who were shuttled to the hotel from Central Romana’s sprawling nearby 240,000-acre plantation, where many workers, along with their families, live in ramshackle camps known as bateyes...

But the HSI agents’ inquiry and deployment in the Dominican Republic, disclosed here for the first time, indicates significant new federal scrutiny of the country’s sugar industry. It could also represent a breakthrough in the application of U.S. laws allowing corporations and their executives to be held criminally accountable for labor exploitation in their supply chains...

An investigation by HSI that leads to criminal charges against Central Romana or the company’s leadership would be “unprecedented,” according to Kenneth Kennedy, a retired special agent with the division who directed efforts to expand its work targeting forced labor in goods imported into the U.S. “This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains.”

Central Romana spokesman Jorge Sturla declined to confirm the existence of, or comment on, any investigation by HSI. Sturla said Elevate, a labor auditor Central Romana has arranged to consult for the company, had “found no evidence of forced labor.” He declined to provide a copy of its report...

A department spokesperson said HSI does not confirm the existence of or comment on ongoing investigations. However, four Central Romana cane field workers confirmed they met with HSI agents earlier this year. The workers, who requested anonymity fearing reprisal by their employer, told Reveal and Mother Jones that agents queried them in Spanish and Haitian Creole about their grueling work, living conditions, pay, debt, medical care, and precarious immigration status. (The vast majority of the company’s cane workers are of Haitian descent, and many are undocumented.) The agents also asked about elderly workers who, lacking access to government pensions, routinely cut cane into their 70s...

The Homeland Security Investigations inquiry is taking place as Central Romana flexes its muscle in Washington over the export ban. Congressional disclosure reports show Central Romana has paid Akin Gump, which Sturla confirmed was hired for its “experience in international trade law,” to lobby members of the House about the ban. Another payment of $25,000 for lobbying the State Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection went to the firm of James “Wally” Brewster, a U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic under the Obama administration...

Central Romana has long denied the use of forced labor on its Dominican plantations...