UK slavery network 'had 400 victims'

Members of a gang behind the biggest modern-day slavery network ever exposed in the UK have been jailed.

Police believe more than 400 victims were put to work in the West Midlands by the organised crime gang.

They tricked vulnerable people from Poland into England with the promise of work and a better lifestyle.

But their victims were made to live in rat-infested houses and worked menial jobs, it can now be reported after reporting restrictions were lifted.

Eight offenders, who police say are members and associates of two Polish crime families, have been convicted of slavery, trafficking and money-laundering offences during two trials.

Five have been jailed, with sentences ranging from four years and six months to 11 years. Three more are set to be sentenced, including one who went on the run during his trial.

The network collapsed when two victims fled their captors in 2015 and told slavery charity Hope for Justice of their ordeal

The group of five men and three women targeted the most desperate from their homeland, including the homeless, ex-prisoners and alcoholics.

They were transported to the UK by bus, but when they arrived they were housed in squalid homes around West Bromwich, Smethwick and Walsall, forced to sleep up to four in a room on filthy mattresses and had their wages "farmed" from bank accounts on payday.

They were marched to banks and made to open accounts the gang had complete control over.

The slaves were made to work long days at rubbish recycling centres, farms and turkey-gutting factories and given as little as £20 a week by their captors.

The gang also claimed benefits in the names of some of their oblivious victims, who ranged in age from 17 to a man in his 60s.

One of the victims died while in captivity, and the gang removed all his personal belongings and identity documents so their plot could not be discovered.

It is estimated the gang made more than £2m between June 2012 and October 2017, which allowed them to lead a lavish lifestyle.

Marek Chowaniec, 30, of Walsall, and Marek Brzezinski, 50, Tipton, jailed for 11 and nine years respectively for trafficking, conspiracy to require another to perform forced labour and money laundering.

Justyna Parczewska, 48, West Bromwich, and Julianna Chodakowicz, 24, of Evesham, jailed for eight and seven years respectively for conspiracy to require another to perform forced labour and money laundering.

Natalia Zmuda, 29, of Walsall, four years and six months for trafficking, conspiracy to require another to perform forced labour and money laundering.

Ignacy Brzezinski, 52 of West Bromwich, Jan Sadowski, 26, of West Bromwich and Wojciech Nowakowski, 41, of Winson Green, were all convicted of trafficking charges, conspiracy to require and control another person to perform forced labour, and conspiracy to acquire, use and possess criminal property. They will be sentenced later on Friday.

Police said Chowaniec was the "respectable face" of the gang, playing a convincing role in banks and employment agencies. Ignacy Brzezinski - who absconded during his trial while wearing an electronic tag - was in charge of the bank accounts and wages.

Marek Brzezinski travelled to Poland to recruit victims, while Parczewska - the wife of Ignacy Brzezinski - was described by police as having a "matriarchal role, welcoming new arrivals and making them cups of tea and food at her home but knowing full well what horrors lay ahead".

They even had an insider at a Worcester employment agency - Chodakowicz - who signed up dozens of the victims.

Nowakowski and Sadowski met the arrivals in the UK while Zmuda escorted them to job centre appointments and controlled bank accounts.

The trial judge at Birmingham Crown Court, Mary Stacey, described their trafficking conspiracy as the "most ambitious, extensive and prolific" modern-day slavery network ever exposed in the UK.

Ch Insp Nick Dale, who led Operation Fort, said it had been a "really complex investigation" over four years.

A total of 92 victims were identified but there could have been more than 400, police believe.

"This was trafficking and exploitation on a massive scale; this gang treated these people, their fellow countrymen, as commodities purely for their own greed," Ch Insp Dale said.

"What they did was abhorrent: they subjected victims to a demi-life of misery and poverty. They forced them into work and, if they objected, they were beaten or threatened with violence and told family members back home would be attacked.

"Some were told they would be taken to the woods to dig their own graves. One man who had an accident at work was forced back to the factory and denied hospital treatment, leaving him with long-term damage to his arm."

FROM bbc.com/news/uk/ bimingham