Forced labour camps discovered in Italy

Italian police have freed 113 Polish workers from what have been described as “labour camps” in the southern region of Puglia. Italian prosecutor Piero Foggi said, “There were inhuman conditions, they were real labour camps.” It is alleged that the victims were forced to work 15 hours a day for one Euro per hour and were beaten with metal posts and threatened with guns. At least four of the workers had apparently committed suicide, but these deaths are being treated as suspicious. The operation to end these forced labour camps was conducted by a special unit of Italian Carabinieri and the unit for human trafficking at the Polish Chief Police Headquarters with the help of Europol and Interpol. Twenty people have been arrested in the joint operation. It is alleged that they recruited people in Poland by advertising safe agricultural jobs in Italy, but then trafficked them into slavery.