South Philly man pleads guilty to tax fraud

A South Philadelphia labor contractor has pleaded guilty to illegally transporting undocumented workers and failing to pay employment and income taxes.

Kim Meas, 60, admitted using 14 shell companies to create the illusion that the workers from his firm were instead employed by the shells.

By doing that, prosecutors said, Meas hoped to make the shell firms appear to be responsible for paying taxes, but the shells never paid.

Meas ran LS Services Inc., which operated from a variety of addresses in South Philadelphia. Two of his coconspirators, Ken Sem and Vivi Fnu, previously pleaded guilty.

Local corporations paid LS Services fixed rates for each employee. From 2006 to 2008 alone, LS collected fees totaling about $25 million, court records show.

Prosecutors say LS Services sent workers - some legal and some undocumented - to corporations across the Philadelphia region.

"To distinguish its legal employees and the illegal-alien employees that it employed," the charges said, "an X was placed next to the name of LS's legal employees in some of the company's books."

Meas, who oversaw the LS Service operations, used multiple vehicles to transport the workers to jobs around the region.

Meas could face up to 30 years in prison. A date for sentencing has not been set.