Thirty-three Indian farm workers were allegedly forced to
work more than 10 hours a day, seven days a week, for wages of around US$4 an
hour that were sometimes withheld, a statement from the police said.
The police spokesperson said they also confiscated more than
US$500,000 in cash and other assets from two Indian nationals suspected of
being gang-masters. The money is believed to be tied to the alleged sale of the
workers as low-cost labor, they said.
This comes as Italian authorities were investigating the
death of a 31-year-old Indian national who died after his arm was severed in an
accident at a fruit farm in June.
The 33 freed workers were lured to Italy by Indian brokers
who worked with traffickers in promising people legitimate jobs, the spokesperson
said.
The workers had each paid more than 17,000 euros (around US$18,500) for travel
and for what turned out to be fake seasonal work permits to enter the country,
according to the spokesperson.
Many of the workers were charged an additional 13,000 euros
(around US$14,100) in a promise of permanent work permits, according to the
police statement.
“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.
The financial police said they are now investigating the
business relationships the suspected gang-masters had with other entities,
including many companies who used the low-cost labor.
On Saturday, the Indian embassy in Rome said on X that it
was aware of media reports about Indian nationals working in agricultural farms
in Italy.
“We are in contact with Italian authorities and the Indian
community to ensure safety and well-being of Indian nationals,” it added.
Italy has a complicated history with labor trafficking. In
2018, the financial police said that at least a quarter of all
agriculture-related labor was tied to a gang-master system whereby farm and
other labor workers are contracted out by individuals who “own” them. The
practice has been illegal since 2016 after a female laborer working under
slave-like conditions for little money died.
More than 11 percent of all workers in Italy work in the
black market, meaning they are not documented even if they are Italian nationals,
and neither they nor their employees pay taxes on their salaries, which serves
to enable labor trafficking, according to the police spokesperson.
