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Charity and police break up UK's largest modern slavery ring Charity and police break up UK's largest modern slavery ring
(about 4 hours later)
The UK’s largest modern slavery ring, which forced more than 400 people to work for a pittance while their criminal masters earned £2m, has been smashed. The largest-ever modern slavery ring uncovered in the UK has been broken up after a three-year investigation into its activities. Some of its 400 victims worked for as little as 50p a day.
A three-year police investigation uncovered an organised criminal gang led by the Brzezinski family, which preyed on homeless people, ex-prisoners and alcoholics from Poland. Their labour earned millions for members of a criminal gang led by a Polish criminal family, which preyed on the homeless, ex-prisoners and alcoholics from Poland. Gang members were jailed on Friday.
The ring lured and then trafficked vulnerable people to the UK with the promise of good money, but instead housed them in squalor and used them as what a judge described as “commodities”. The gang tricked and then trafficked vulnerable men and women – ranging in age from 17 to over 60 – to Britain with the promise of gainful employment but instead housed them in squalor and used them as what a judge described as “commodities”.
Victims were paid as little as 50p for a day’s labour and in one case a worker was given coffee and a chicken as payment for redecorating a house. Working on farms, rubbish recycling centres and poultry factories in the Midlands, they were made to live in cramped, rat-infested accommodation and reduced to going to soup kitchens and food banks to get enough to eat.
Another man had to wash in a canal because he had no other access to water, while one house was so rundown that a leaking toilet had to be plugged with a duvet. “Any lingering complacency after the 2007 bicentenary celebrations of the abolition of the English Slave Trade Act was misplaced,” Judge Mary Stacey told Birmingham crown court.
One victim said: “I would say some homeless people here in the UK live better than I lived after I arrived over here.” “The hard truth is that the practice continues, here in the UK, often hiding in plain sight.”
Hungry victims went to soup kitchens and food banks and many made their own cigarettes from butts off the street. Reporting restrictions were lifted on Friday after the end of two trials of five men and three women, all originally from Poland, who have all now been convicted of modern slavery offences and money laundering.
Meanwhile, the gang’s bosses wore lavish clothes and drove luxury cars, including a Bentley. Their conspiracy – which ran from June 2012 until October 2017 – was described by Stacey as the “most ambitious, extensive and prolific” modern day slavery network ever uncovered in Britain. Investigators believe it is the largest such criminal prosecution of its type in Europe to date.
After the end of two trials, it can now be reported how five men and three women, all originally from Poland and all convicted of modern slavery offences and money-laundering, exploited their destitute victims for “greed”. An investigation was launched in February 2015 by West Midlands police after victims were identified by the anti-slavery charity Hope for Justice. Fifty-one victims eventually made contact after outreach efforts at two of the charity’s drop-in centres.
Jurors heard the accounts of more than 90 victims, but it is believed at least 350 more had been used by the gang and had since either returned to Poland, could not be traced or were too afraid to come forward. One victim, who was brought to the UK in 2014 after gang members approached him at a bus station with the promise of work in England after he had just been released from jail, said that being locked in a Polish prison was better than the conditions he was forced to endure.
At the end of the second case last month, a jury at Birmingham crown court convicted two men, Ignacy Brzezinski, 52, of West Bromwich, and Wojciech Nowakowski, 41, of Birmingham, of modern slavery offences. A third, Jan Sadowski, 26, of West Bromwich, admitted his part on the first day of the trial. Nowakowski and Sadowski were to be sentenced on Friday. Mirosław Lehmann, 38, originally from Poznan, said he had nowhere else to go and wanted to start a new life. After arriving, he and others experienced squalid living conditions, with up to four people to a room in homes dotted across the Black Country in the West Midlands.
At a previous trial ending in February, the following people were convicted of their roles in the gang: the leading conspirator Marek Chowanic, 30, of Walsall, Ignacy’s cousin, Marek Brzezinski, 50, of Tipton; a recruitment consultant, Julianna Chodakiewicz, 24, of Evesham; the group’s matriarch, Justyna Parczewska, 48, of West Bromwich; and Natalia Zmuda, 29, of Walsall. He was forced to do housing renovation work, decorating, painting walls, clearing gardens and cutting grass, labouring for up to 13 hours at a time.
At their sentencing in March, Judge Mary Stacey said the “degradation” of fellow humans had been “totally unacceptable” and jailed each of them for between four-and-a-half and 11 years. Any “pay” he may have earned was deducted by the gangmasters, who told him the cash had gone towards paying to bring him to the UK.
She said the defendants had subjected people to a “demi-life of misery and poverty”, robbing them of their dignity and humanity “without care or regard for the rights of the individuals affected”. Brutality was commonplace and victims would in some cases be frogmarched to cashpoints to withdraw money and be told they owed debts for transport costs, rent and food.
She added: “Any lingering complacency after the 2007 bicentenary celebrations of the abolition of the English Slave Trade Act was misplaced. The hard truth is that the practice continues, here in the UK, often hiding in plain sight.” When one worker died of natural causes at an address controlled by the gang, one of its leaders ordered his ID and personal effects be removed from his pockets before paramedics arrived.
The group helped target and traffick people from their Polish homeland, placing them in cramped, rat-infested accommodation in the Black Country and putting them to work on farms, and at waste recycling centres and poultry factories. Ignacy Brzezinski, one of several men convicted last month for their part in the ring, is currently on the run but was sentenced in his absence on Friday to 11 years.
In some cases, the gang waited outside jails in Poland to approach people who had just been released. “As the head of the family, he set the tone of the operation, and also enjoyed the fruits of the conspiracy, riding round in his Bentley and a fleet of high-performance cars at his disposal,” the judge said.
Victims, aged from 17 to over 60, were housed across at least nine different addresses in West Bromwich, Walsall, Sandwell and Smethwick, sleeping up to four to a room, fed out-of-date food, and forced to scavenge for mattresses to sleep on. Another leading conspirator, Marek Chowanic, 30, was jailed for 11 years for trafficking, conspiracy to require another to perform forced labour and money laundering. Justyna Parczewska, 48, who was said by police to have played a “matriarchal role” by welcoming new arrivals, was given a five-and-a-half year sentence.
Some had no working toilets, heating or furniture. Marek Brzezinski, who made regular trips to north-east Poland to recruit workers, was jailed for nine years, Natalia Zmuda for four-and-a-half years and a recruitment consultant, Julianna Chodakiewicz, for five-and-a half years.
If any complained, gang enforcers would humiliate, threaten or beat them, while “house spies” – previously trafficked individuals turned informers – kept an eye on the workers. Wojciech Nowakowski, who was described as a one-time victim of the conspiracy who had risen to become a spy and enforcer for the gang, was jailed for six and a half years. Jan Sadowski – the only defendant to plead guilty – was given three years.
On several occasions, anti-slavery investigators with the charity Hope for Justice, and West Midlands police, uncovered shocking brutality against those who stepped out of line. Ben Cooley, Hope for Justice’s chief executive, said: “While the victims can never get back what the traffickers took from them – financially, emotionally, physically and psychologically – we hope that the knowledge their abusers are now behind bars will help them as they move on with their lives.”
One man who complained about living conditions and pay had his arm broken, was refused medical attention, and was then ejected from the accommodation because his injury left him unable to work. Many of the survivors who were supported by the charity are now in employment, including one who was able to bring his family over to live in the UK.
Another was stripped naked in front of other workers, doused in surgical chemical iodine, and told the gang would remove his kidneys if he did not keep quiet. One man, who was a key witness in the trials, had been at risk of homelessness and was being sent debt letters for welfare benefits that had been fraudulently taken out by traffickers in his name. He is now living in a two-bedroom flat with his partner and child, works full-time to support his family and is no longer chased by bailiffs for debts.
The gang seized identity cards, registered victims for national insurance and opened bank accounts in their names using bogus addresses. The criminal masters also claimed benefits on behalf of the victims without their knowledge.
The ring infiltrated a recruitment agency, meaning work could be directly sourced without raising suspicions with third parties.
Victims would be “frog-marched” to cashpoints to withdraw money and told they owed debts for transport, rent and food, Hope for Justice said.
When one worker died of natural causes, Parczewska ordered that his ID and personal effects be removed from his pockets before paramedics arrived.
Stacey said the conspiracy, which ran from June 2012 until October 2017, was the “most ambitious, extensive and prolific” modern-day slavery network ever uncovered. Investigators believe it is the largest such criminal prosecution of its type in Europe, to date.
The operation was smashed after victims were found by Hope for Justice. The charity said 51 of them eventually made contact through its outreach efforts at two drop-in centres. It then flagged the slavery ring’s existence to police and an investigation was launched in February 2015.
Opening the second of two trials, Caroline Haughey QC, prosecuting, said: “When you are deprived of your freedoms and exploited for your weakness, that is criminal – and it is of such exploitation and degradation that this case concerns – where human beings have become commodities.”
The judge heard on Friday that Ignacy Brzezinski had skipped bail since his conviction.
CrimeCrime
SlaverySlavery
BirminghamBirmingham
WalsallWalsall
West BromwichWest Bromwich
PolandPoland
EuropeEurope
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