Husband and wife accused of slavery racket
‘Inhumane’ treatment of fruit pickers by couple
A ROMANIAN couple pocketed the wages of a group of seasonal workers toiling in the citrus orchards of Valencia and forced to work long hours seven days a week, say detectives.
They controlled the ninestrong ‘gang’ of workers – exploiting their lack of Spanish and were able to control bank accounts and even run a profitable sideline in stealing crops picked by their downtrodden charges.
Surviving on subsistence wages, the nine men were forced to live in a storage shed without running water – washing themselves and their clothes with ditch water, according to the Guardia Civil.
The illicit ‘Mr and Mrs’ show ended when one of the workers walked into the force’s Pedregeur station to complain he was assaulted by a colleague during an argument. As he made a statement, the police discovered ‘the appalling working conditions’ the group of Romanian and Portuguese migrants suffered.
It resulted in a wider investigation undertaken by a unit of the Guardia Civil based at Calpe specialising in agricultural crimes and the arrest of the married Romanian couple; the husband aged 31 and his 26-year-old wife.
Both have been granted conditional bail by an investigating judge in Sueca.
Officers were taken to the outbuilding where the victims were housed in Sollana, near the couple’s home.
A spokesman said: “To keep their jobs, the seasonal workers were forced to live in overcrowded and inhumane conditions in an agricultural building in the town – the couple lived nearby in a conventional home.
“Due to the terrible working conditions and the fear of being fired, the workers lived in this place with the obvious deficiencies of its structure; flooding when it rained and without running water.”
The husband took the position of ‘gang master’ and travelled with the group to harvest citrus crops in the fields of Castellon, Valencia and Alicante – the couple obtaining employment through a company employing seasonal workers after supplying labour to the firm for a number of years.
Piece rate
However, the legal paperwork submitted under seasonal workers’ agreements was false.
It did not reflect the hours or days worked or the wages paid. According to detectives, the money earned by the ‘piece rate salary’ of each victim and what he received could differ by €1,000.
Police said the couple also ‘appropriated’ fruit gathered by the group – the produce was
gathered in 22kg containers but later deposited in 20kg boxes, the measure of their output.
“They kept the extra two kilos collected by the workers… and in this way, the couple could illegally appropriate hundreds of kilos collected by their workers at the end of each day,” said the spokesman.
He said workers were also entitled to expenses from a hiring company for travel to the places they were needed.
In this case, the workers – again under threat of being fired – filled the tank of a van, the couple pocketing the money later claimed from the employers under the terms of the contract.
And because the victims struggled with the language and even more with Spanish labour laws, it enabled the couple to file paperwork with the temporary employment agency and divert wages into their own bank accounts.
“This allowed the pair to withdraw and spend the money paid by these companies. Victims were paid ridiculous amounts in cash which they only gave to cover their basic needs,” said the Guardia Civil.
“In this way they had full control of wages and, therefore, of workers; who were forced to accept these conditions to get paid at the end of the month.”