Valencia restaurateur arrested for human trafficking and exploitation: staff worked for starvation wages and in unspeakable conditions.
The News
A tragic entanglement between what was a deplorable practice (hopefully extinct, at least in Europe) in centuries past and technological innovation perfectly describes what recently happened in Valencia. In recent weeks, in fact, a 41-year-old Uzbek man was arrested by the Spanish National Police on charges of human trafficking for labor exploitation. What technology has to do with it is quickly said: the restaurant owner, La Vanguardia reports, was luring his victims through social networks.
In the ads the man promised a salary of 1,200 euros in addition to administrative regularization for residence in Spain. To recruit staff, the Uzbek turned to his compatriots and other citizens from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The unfortunate people, who fell into the exploiter's trap, however, once they arrived in the Iberian Peninsula found themselves facing a sad and terrifying day-to-day life. Investigations carried out by the Provincial Immigration and Border Brigade of Valencia, following the complaint of a person, who remained anonymous, last September, brought to light a bitter reality.
During the search of the restaurant, investigators found three people, employees, living in a windowless room and sleeping on a mattress bought by one of them. In the three months of work with work days ranging from ten to eleven hours, the victims received a salary of just 500 euros. The Uzbek would, in addition, harass the employees as well as threaten to leave them on the street if they did not perform their tasks perfectly. Given what transpired, fortunately, the man has now been arrested with the hope of putting an end to a situation that is as unbelievable as it is unacceptable.
