Gangmastering in agriculture, arrests underway in Tuscany

PIOMBINO (LIVORNO), 29 APR – Operation by the Carabinieri of the Livorno command underway against gangmasters. The military is carrying out a precautionary custody measure in prison against 10 people seriously suspected, in various capacities and in collaboration with each other, of the crime of illicit intermediation and exploitation of the work of 67 non-EU citizens hosted in the Cas of Piombino, employed for the collection of vegetables and olives and for cleaning vineyards in the provinces of Livorno and Grosseto. The people arrested were all Pakistani nationals, their compatriots and the foreigners who were allegedly exploited were Bangladeshis. The investigation, coordinated by the Livorno prosecutor’s office and conducted by the operational and mobile unit of the Piombino carabinieri company with the support of the Livorno labor inspectorate carabinieri unit, would have made it possible to reconstruct, as the investigators explain, “the illicit use of manpower implemented by 6 owners of individual businesses operating in the agricultural sector, who, also making use of other subjects for the recruitment, daily transport and control of workers, would have employed, taking advantage of their state of need, 67 non-EU citizens hosted in the Cas of Piombino. The workers would not have had a regular employment contract, “a repeated violation of the regulations relating to working hours” would have been ascertained, with “peaks of 10 hours per day, without the scheduled breaks”, with a salary “well below of the 10.56 euros foreseen by the contract. In one case it was even equal to 0.97 euros per hour, with systematic violation of the rules on safety and hygiene”. During the operation, a preventive seizure decree of 45,000 euros was also executed “as profit ascertained by the INPS following the failure to pay social security and insurance contributions for illicitly employed workers”. (HANDLE).