U.K.’s biggest ‘modern slavery’ case
As many as 400 Poles were exploited, authorities say
LONDON — They lived in desperate straits in Poland, often homeless and suffering from addictions. So when the call came to get free housing and well-paid jobs in Britain, hundreds decided to make the move.
But instead of a better life, British authorities said Friday, the immigrants found themselves in the clutches of a human trafficking ring that lured workers to England, starved them, crowded them into squalid housing, forced them to work long hours at menial jobs, stole their wages and paid them as few as 10 pounds, or about $16, a week.
Eight of the group’s members, all of them Polish, have been found guilty in a Birmingham court of trafficking and forced labour, in the “largest ever modern slavery prosecution” in Britain, the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement. The ring may have victimized as many as 400 people over several years, prosecutors said.
Five of the defendants were sentenced earlier this year to prison terms ranging from 4½ to 11 years, and three others are awaiting sentencing on Friday. While some of the convictions occurred months ago, reporting restrictions on the case meant that details were not made public until Friday.
Marek Chowanec, 30, Marek Brzezinski, 29, Julianna Chodakiewicz, 29, Natalia Zmuda, 29, Justyna Parczewska, 48, Ignacy Brzezinski, 53, Wojciech Nowakowski, 42, and Jan Pawal Sadowski, 29, were found guilty after two separate trials at Birmingham Crown Court.
Law enforcement officials said that 88 victims had come forward, and investigators identified more than 300 other people the ring might have exploited.
Forced labour is a persistent problem around the world, but the scale of the practice shocked many after a government-commissioned report in 2017 said that tens of thousands of people across the country, many of them British citizens, were ensnared in what it called “modern slavery” in nail salons, car washes, farms and other low-wage businesses.
The Birmingham case also highlights how human traffickers have for years exploited free movement in the European Union to go under the radar and ensnare victims far away from home.
Responding to new forms of exploitation, the British government last year commissioned an independent review of a human trafficking law enacted in 2015 that it said would guide its action plan.
The West Midlands Police began its investigation of the Birmingham ring in 2015 after an anti-trafficking charity, Hope for Justice, noticed an increasing number of Polish people attending one of its soup kitchens, and gave officers a tip-off.
“The scale of the operation was truly staggering, with millions of pounds netted by the crime group as a result of their callous and systematic exploitation of vulnerable members of the Polish community,” Mark Paul, the head of Complex Casework Unit, Crown Prosecution Service West Midlands, said in the statement.
Traffickers used familiar tactics, targeting vulnerable people, isolating them from the community and taking their money. They forced victims to claim government benefits and kept the money, stole the workers’ property and assaulted or threatened those who complained.
The gang collected about US$3 million over several years by exploiting the immigrants, prosecutors said.
One survivor, Mariusz Rycaczewksi, described the conditions of his captivity to the BBC. Once in England, people were kept in squalid housing in West Bromwich and Birmingham. At first, the gang held them under guard, charging for cigarettes, stale food and alcohol, and keeping tallies of the mounting debts that the traffickers said their victims owed, Rycaczewksi said.
“Every day we travelled 90 minutes to work. I was picking vegetables in the rain,” he recalled. “No toilet facilities, no shower in the house. On Friday, the trafficker comes around and pays me sometimes 40 pounds, sometimes 25 pounds. The most I got was 75 pounds.”
Paul, the prosecutor, said, “That this should be happening in Britain today is shocking, and we hope these convictions will help to highlight that it can happen in plain sight, and stand as another landmark in the fight against modern slavery.”