Slovakian gipsy gang who trafficked slaves to Britain –all thanks to Brussels rules
A GANG was convicted yesterday of trafficking slaves from Eastern Europe to Britain under EU freedom of movement rules.
The Slovak criminals held victims under appalling conditions, stealing their wages and their identities to claim benefits.
A court heard they used their profits to buy cars and pay for holidays.
They made their slaves live in cramped cellars, sleep several to a bed and eat rancid food. The victims had their passports taken away and were told they would be killed if they tried to leave.
Teesside Crown Court heard that the Rafaels, a Romany family, obtained national insurance numbers for their victims and used them to obtain tax credits, which they pocketed.
Fraudulent benefit claims in the names of just two of their victims netted them £14,000 over six years. The slaves, who did not speak English, were told they had to ‘work for Queen Elizabeth’.
They were fed stale bread and goulash while the Rafaels dined on expensive food and wine. The family, themselves EU migrants, paid human traffickers £200 for each of the victims who came from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The slaves worked 12-hour shifts, loading tyres onto trucks, cleaning bricks or removing springs from mattresses for scrap metal.
One man, who was brought to Britain with his father, said: ‘We were fed only potato and goulash that was after its expiry date. The portions were very small. They provided us with bread but I couldn’t eat it, it made me feel sick.
‘The Rafaels told me if I tried to escape my throat would be cut or I would be thrown in the sea because this was an island we were living on.’
The man’s father said he felt ‘humiliated and that he had been traded like a dog’.
John Elvidge QC, prosecuting, said: ‘It was a professional criminal enterprise designed to generate money to enable the Rafaels to enjoy a better life with better cars and better holidays.’
Outside of work, the slaves were kept under watch in terraced homes and told they could not go farther than the back yards because there were ‘men with machetes’ in the streets.
Police were alerted only when one of the slaves escaped and contacted them. Eighteen addresses were raided last May and July and 16 people rescued. Victims were offered immediate help from the NHS and British Red Cross.
Most have now returned to their home countries.
The slaves were held in Newcastle’s deprived Grainger Park area, home to thousands of Eastern European migrants. The operation ran for around seven years.
A Czech woman who knew the Rafaels said: ‘They lived quietly and people were not aware what was going on. To have maybe seven people in one house is not unusual enough to stand out. It is sad that defenceless people were tricked in that way.’
Roman Rafael, the 33-year- old ringleader, and Marian Rafael, 39, admitted charges of conspiracy to traffic with a view to exploitation, money laundering and causing forced labour.
Following a 15-week trial, Roman’s girlfriend Angelika Chec, 29, Ruzena Rafaelova Jr, 37, Juraj Rafael, 38, and a youth aged 17 were convicted of the same charges.
Ruzena Rafaelova Sr, 57, was convicted of causing forced labour and money laundering. Stefan Rafael, 62, and Marianne Rafaelova, 34, were cleared.
The seven guilty defendants were remanded in custody for sentence later this month.
Judge Peter Armstrong warned them: ‘You have to be warned that custodial sentences are inevitable, only the length of those sentences will be a matter for mitigation.’
They face deportation after serving their prison sentences. Detec
‘Told to work for Queen Elizabeth’ ‘A professional enterprise’
tive Inspector Sally MacDonald of Northumbria Police said the convictions had been secured ‘thanks to the bravery of the victims’.
Police described the Rafaels as ‘ a well- established Slovakian Roma organised crime group’.
Agencies and factories that employed the victims had no knowledge of what went on.
Diane Spence of the Crown Prosecution Service said: ‘This family systematically targeted desperate and destitute people with the false promise of good work, fair wages and accommodation.
‘The victims thought they would be able to earn money to send home to their families. Instead, the Rafaels enslaved them and treated them as nothing more than property to be passed around for financial gain.
‘This was a challenging and lengthy trial and it is thanks to the brave testimony of the victims that the defendants have been brought to justice.’
A former neighbour said they had seen ‘peculiar things’ that made sense only after the gang was exposed.
‘These included mattresses being cut in two and back gates being used to access houses rather than the front doors.’