ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A ring of organizations accused of exploiting children as a sales force keeps expanding, Channel 9's Kenneth Craig learned Wednesday.
Florida Department of Children and Families said they have received complaints that some of the children are being mistreated.
Officials told Craig that the groups are operating in so many different areas and so many agencies are involved that it makes it difficult to investigate the groups.
They said almost all the children involved with the groups are from Orange County, but are often taken far away.
Ezekiel Dolcide said he runs a new nonprofit group called Tenacious Youth.
DCF officials said Tenacious Youth isn't a new nonprofit, but a new spinoff of a for-profit ring that has been accused of using kids as young as 8 to sell items out of plastic bins in neighborhoods across central Florida.
"It's a youth organization for teens. Keeps kids occupied, gives them something better to do," said Dolcide.
"They say all of that rhetoric is just a big front for you put kids to work on the streets, in counties they're not even from," Craig said to Dolcide.
"We don't operate like that. We don't operate like that," said Dolcide.
Dolcide's latest startup came after the state hit his previous group with thousands of dollars in fines.
Channel 9 has been investigating the groups since the 1990s but despite authorities' best efforts they haven't stopped.
"It's all money and greed on their part," said Sue Aboul-Hosn of DCF.
DCF officials said they've received seven complaints this year about several different groups, run by different people -- all of them using kids to make money.
One person went so far as to send pictures to DCF last month when a young child showed up at his door.
Several people have been arrested, but authorities said the organizations' leaders keep splitting up and creating new groups.
"It's the same thing over and over and over, and we're not really being able to stop it," said Aboul-Hosn.
DCF officials said anyone wishing to file a complaint about the organizations should get the name of the children who come to the door trying to make a sale.
WFTV
