Dozens of Indian nationals held in “slave-like” working conditions near Verona in northern Italy have been freed, a spokesperson for Italy’s financial police told CNN.
Thirty-three Indian farm laborers were allegedly forced to work more than 10 hours a day, seven days a week, for wages of around $4 an hour that were sometimes withheld, a statement from the police said. The police spokesperson said they also confiscated more than $500,000 in cash and other assets from two Indian nationals suspected of being the gangmasters. The money is believed to be tied to the alleged “sale” of the workers as “low-cost labor,” they said.
“To guarantee their total silence and submission, the two Indian subjects took away the passports of the laborers as soon as they arrived in Italy and imposed on them an absolute ban on leaving the dilapidated ‘houses’ in which they were forced to live under threat, several times implemented, of physical retaliation in case of refusal,” the police statement said. The identities and genders of the freed workers have not been made public.
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