Gang jailed for £1m
FOUR MEN COERCED VULNERABLE WORKERS TO COME TO UK
Reporter A SLAVERY gang has been jailed for a total of 32 years after trafficking and exploiting vulnerable Polish workers.
The four men were part of a £1m operation that enticed their victims from their native country to the UK with the promise of well-paid jobs.
But, when they arrived, they were forced to live in appalling living conditions, where they had to scavenge and roam the streets looking for basic furnishings such as mattresses, and were then tricked into low-paid work.
Newcastle Crown Court heard the gang then controlled their victims’ finances by taking their bank cards and wages and leaving them with “pittance” to live on.
Now, the men – Sabastian Mandzik, Seweryn Szymt, Pawel Majewski and Robert Majewski – have been jailed for a total of 32 years after they were found guilty after trial of two counts of conspiring to force people into labour and one of conspiring to conceal criminal property.
Mandzik, described as the “linchpin” of the operation, was also convicted of a further charge of transporting people for exploitation.
Locking them up, Judge Stephen Ashurst said: “Throughout the ages, vulnerable people have been exploited and, despite the efforts of reforms over the country to outlaw slavery, it has not been eradicated and it continues to thrive in various parts of the world.
“Sadly, as this case demonstrated, the exploitation of such people continues in our own country.”
The court heard the operation, described by the judge as a “family business”, ran between June 2014 and September 2016.
During that time, the Polish victims were enticed to the North East with the promise of well-paid jobs where they could earn at least four times their wages in Poland, prosecutors said.
But, when they arrived on Tyneside, the workers were put up in sub-standard, cramped accommodation, which lacked basic facilities and were known as “tents”, in Ethel Street and Atkinson Road, in Benwell, and Deckham Terrace, in Gateshead.
Speaking to the gang, Judge Ashurst said: “What you did was to create what has been called tents. In other words, large, unfurnished properties, which you either let or sublet from other landlords.
“These were very basic affairs,