The owners of a religious boarding school that was once raided in Alabama have been arrested in Baldwin County and transported to Texas to face human trafficking charges.

Gary Dwayne Wiggins, 49, and wife Meghann Shereen Wiggins, 34, were arrested in Alabama shortly after a Texas grand jury indicted them Aug. 6 on one count each of human trafficking, according to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office in Texas.

The couple are accused of forcing four underage boys to work for a lawn care company they owned, according to court documents.

Gary Wiggins was arrested in Alabama and taken to Texas in August 2019 to face one count of human trafficking related to the religious boarding school he ran with his wife.

The charges stem from a year-long investigation into allegations of abuse, neglect, labor violations, fraud and human trafficking at the Joshua Home and other businesses owned by Gary Wiggins. In July 2018, Texas authorities got a search warrant for the Joshua Home, Joshua Home Lawn Care and Joshua Home Moving.

Authorities later removed eight boys ages 10 to 17 from the Joshua Home, according to local news outlets. All the boys were from out of state and were later returned to their parents or guardians.

Meghann Wiggins was arrested in Alabama and taken to Texas in August 2019 to face one count of human trafficking related to the religious boarding school she ran with her husband, Gary Wiggins.

Before their arrest, the Wigginses were well-known to Alabama and Missouri authorities for the schools they operated in those states.

Three years ago, the Wigginses ran Blessed Hope Boys Academy in a rural community in Baldwin County called Seminole. Blessed Hope was billed as a private boarding school where parents could send troubled teens for hard work and a Christian education. It opened around 2013.

But in December 2016, authorities raided Blessed Hope after some of the boys escaped to a nearby neighbor’s house, saying they were victims of abuse. They told authorities that Gary Wiggins – known as Brother Gary – punished students by locking them in a closet, withholding food and forcing them to exercise for hours.

Alabama’s Department of Human Resources removed 22 boys ages 8 to 17, all from out of state, and eventually sent them back to their parents or guardians.

Blessed Hope had operated in Alabama without state regulation or oversight because of a loophole in state law at that time which exempted schools that operate as church ministry from state inspection.

Five months after the raid, the Alabama legislature passed a law requiring such schools to be regulated and inspected by the state.

No Alabama charges were ever brought against Gary or Meghann Wiggins related to Blessed Hope.

In 2017, ABC News’ 20/20 program profiled Lucas Greenfield, a former Blessed Hope student in Alabama who said Gary Wiggins had mistreated him and attempted conversion therapy on gay students.

By May 2018, the Wigginses had reopened their school as the Joshua Home in a remote area of southwest Missouri, where there was no law requiring state oversight. They billed the new school as “a home for young men that are struggling in life.”

Within weeks, the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department in Missouri began getting calls from concerned family members.

After a sheriff’s deputy went out to do a well-child check on one of the students, the Wigginses packed up again and headed for Texas in June 2018.

Hearings on the human trafficking charges scheduled for Gary and Meghann Wigginses in September.