Highly organized and multinational network exploited thousands of Timorese immigrants in Portugal, Romanian, moldavos, Indian, Ukrainians, Pakistanis and Senegalese, who lived in inhumane conditions, between threats and hunger. MP accused 41 people by criminal association, trafficking and money laundering. There 9 Portuguese involved.
About a year ago, when the Judicial Police (PJ) burst into the ground floor house, white and gray, of the Romanian leaders of the human trafficking network, since 2018 operated from Cuba, Alentejo, found a little checkered notebook listing the names of the exploited workers and the daily hours each one worked in agriculture. Some were simply identified as “negriiâ€, “blacks†in Portuguese. In one word, they summed up what they meant to them.: they were slaves, their slaves who in five years allowed the organization to earn more than €7.7 million, no VAT declarations, IRC or Social Security contributions.
The sum appears in the indictment order, known this week and to which Expresso had access. The investigation led by the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) Lisbon, in collaboration with the PJ National Counterterrorism Unit, He led the prosecution (MP) to accuse 51 Defendants, 41 people and 10 Business, for the crimes of criminal association, human trafficking and money laundering. There 26 defendants in custody.
It was one of the largest operations to combat the exploitation of agricultural workers in Alentejo, with 400 inspectors carrying out fifty searches and judge Carlos Alexandre himself on the ground. Now you understand why. The network was extensive, highly organized, hierarchical and multinational, with an oiled and cross-border human and logistical structure. In Baixo Alentejo it was present in at least 14 localities — Cuba, Beja, Saved, Matthias, Fat Head, Peroguarda, Albernoa, Pedrógão, Faro do Alentejo, Baleizão, Sour village, Vila Alva, Serpa and Beja —, had Romanian elements (20), Portuguese (9), moldavos (7), Indian (3), Guineans (1) and Ukrainians (1), and ‘slave collectors’ in almost all countries of origin of the explorers.
The plan was conceived by two Romanian citizens, a man and a woman, it with 36 year old, her with 29. Para of, recruited fellow citizens with family connections into their structure. They constituted three groups, shared tasks, victims and profits among them. Tailored to your needs, Asian collaborators joined the organization, Africans and Portuguese, these last agricultural managers, fictitious owners of companies and automobiles, real estate developers and a solicitor. The ‘office’ operated informally at Café Gazela, in Beja.
Although the accusation is only based on the identification of 55 victims, the documentation and information collected in the searches and during a year of surveillance and wiretapping raises the number of workers to thousands, among Timorese, Romanian, moldavos, Indian, Ukrainians, Pakistanis and Senegalese. On the day of the police operation, a 23 November 2022, were identified “in conditions of human misery†457 people. Three required medical assistance.
In ads on Facebook and through direct contact in countries of origin, the victims were lured into jobs on Portuguese farms, for seasonal harvests — melon, olive, almond, potato… They were guaranteed “a good salary, decent accommodation and good working conditionsâ€. They found the opposite world. “They ended up being forced to work in exchange for a meager salary, accommodation in degrading and sub-human conditions, whose value was, even so, deducted from the supposed salary they would have to receiveâ€, reads in the indictment.
The journey was made along four routes: an aerial, Bucharest-Lisbon, and three terrestrial, in passenger vans or coaches, departing from the Romanian capital, de Krynychne (Ukraine) egg from Chisinau (Moldavia) and direct arrival to the Intermarché park or the new Continente de Beja or to the workplace. Most immigrants from Pakistan, India or Timor was raised in Portugal from an Asian intermediary.
17 per room, four per mattress
Cross-checking the victims' statements with the documentation seized from the explorers, the details of the years of slavery are discovered. Workers were highly controlled within the farms themselves, with constant screams and even violence. Some greenhouse employees were hired by the network, receiving a percentage of the immigrants' salary, to alert you to inspections and prioritize hiring when vacancies arise.
The promised 7 or 8 daily working hours extended until 15, seven days a week, with 15 minutes for lunch. €5 an hour, they went to a salary of €150 or €50 per month so that they could “survive within the limitsâ€, deducting accommodation and the fee charged for finding work in Portugal. They signed contracts — they were told they were contracts — in Portuguese, language they did not master. Sometimes they received nothing. The trafficking was paid for by the trafficked person himself.. Some had to “beg to surviveâ€. They were hungry.
They lived in dilapidated houses, by the dozens, “huddled in unworthy placesâ€, in some places 17 per room, four per bunk, three to four per mattress on the floor, with cockroaches and fleas, no bathroom, only open-air latrines, no running water, light or food. They paid up to €120 each for it. Most immigrants did not have identification documentation with them.
Protests and demands were controlled with “muscular†physical and psychological threats, both workers and their families, who remain in their countries of origin, creating a “climate of fear and terror, without any ability to react (…), as if they were slaves, victims of an organization that does not look for means to achieve its endsâ€, read in the dispatch.
But there were those who managed to be saved or found salvation in flight.. A group of 31 Timorese, housed in a hill “in very degrading conditionsâ€, was removed thanks to the intervention of the GNR, Social Security and Working Conditions Authority (ACT) and placed in shelters for victims of trafficking. Later, six Ukrainians managed to reach the local GNR post. The network leaders went there, “Threatening them with death through gestures with the thumb across the throat, accompanied by screamsâ€.
A Moldovan couple also managed to escape, but he did not free himself from the attacks when he announced his intention to leave. Another countryman was beaten for demanding late payments, forcing him to be admitted to Beja Hospital. He was rescued by the Red Cross as a homeless person in Cartaxo. During searches, the PJ found several illegal firearms, some with the serial number erased, knives and tubes with which workers were threatened and attacked.
No scheme, the Portuguese solicitor has an important role. The companies and temporary work societies that he helped to open, some with €5 in share capital “so as not to look badâ€, they only served to establish contracts with agricultural holdings that paid large sums for recruiting workers. In the searches, records of transfers of €264 thousand were found, €137 mil, €104 mil, €101 mil, for firms with names created on the spot, like Seductive Spring, Fragrant Dawn, Wealthy Roots, Crystalline Zodiac, Opulent evening, Affable Beaver or Lavender Myriad.
These amounts were then collected and delivered by hand to the leaders in a phased manner. They would later appear in the form of Porsches, Mercedes and BMW, houses to be built in the traffickers' countries of origin and gold threads.
News: Lidador News/Expresso
