Ruthless family made £2m from misery of victims
LAST year the force brought a Polish slavery gang to justice after the biggest modern slavery investigation in the UK.
Husband and wife Ignacy Brzezinski and Justyna Parczewska led the ruthless crime family who made more than £2 million trafficking victims from Poland to West Bromwich.
Hundreds of vulnerable people, including the homeless, alcoholics and drug addicts, were lured from their Polish homeland to the UK with the promise of well-paid jobs and better lives.
Yet once they arrived they were forced to open bank accounts by the criminals who then put them to work in farms and recycling centres and stole most of their wages, with many picking up just £20 per week. The victims were also made to live in appalling squalor and beaten and threatened by enforcers if they complained – including being told they would have to ‘dig their own graves’.
Yet the gang was brought down by West Midlands Police’s Organised Crime team, aided by the
Hope for Justice anti-slavery charity.
The West Bromwich charity encouraged traumatised victims to speak to police who were eventually able to unravel a spider web of financial fraud and identify theft. Birmingham Crown Court heard that coaches carrying victims from Poland would often drop them off directly at the couple’s family home in Beechwood Road, West Bromwich. Parczewska, 48, was jailed for eight years following a trial, while her husband Brzezinski, 52, was sentenced in his absence – after going on the run during the trial. Relative Marek Brzezinski – who also brought many of the Polish nationals over in his car – was sentenced to nine years for his part in the operation, which saw victims housed in appalling conditions in West Bromwich, Sandwell,
Smethwick and Walsall.
Investigations showed the Brzezinskis were on benefits yet sent cash amounts back to Poland via Western Union.
The lavish lifestyles they led was underlined after a luxury Bentley car was found at the address, linked toIgnacy Brzezinski.
Justyna Parczewska was seen as the crime family patriach.
Another leading gang member was Warsaw-born Marek Chowanic.
The 30-year-old, from Mount Street, Walsall, was jailed for 11 years after brave victims gave evidence in court.
His partner Natalia Zmuda, 29 and from Canute Close in Walsall, received four years and six months for her role in the conspiracy. Juliana Chodakowicz was jailed for five years after she used her position at a Worcestershire recruitment agency to get the victims jobs.