Three men accused of human trafficking appeared in court in Malmoe on Thursday. The crime involved forcing Poles into slave labor after taking away their identity documents.
According to the Swedish prosecutor’s office, a system was created that exploited people in difficult life situations, for example those experiencing homelessness in Poland.
According to the indictment obtained by PAP (Polish Press Agency), three Polish construction workers had been lured to southern Sweden with promises of attractive earnings. In reality, as they testified, they received only small amounts of money for long hours of exhausting work, without protective equipment, six days a week or with no days off at all. They lived in an unheated attic in poor sanitary conditions.
Shortly after their arrival, the workers learned from their 35-year-old boss, who had recruited them and is the main defendant, that they supposedly owed him money. The alleged debt was meant to cover the cost of travel, accommodation, and tools.
The Poles testified that they were under constant supervision by the boss. As the investigation revealed, the 35-year-old in fact hired the workers illegally and offered their services to his numerous clients. Two accomplices assisted him in the scheme.
The ordeal of the Gastarbeiter (migrant workers) lasted six months, and the case came to light when, in February, one of the Polish victims, suffering from hypothermia, was found by a police patrol car. Without money or documents, he had been walking along the E65 road for several kilometers toward the nearest town, Ystad. Police then conducted a search of a farm near Skurup, where two additional Poles were freed.
The trial that began on Thursday is being held in a high-security courtroom and is scheduled to last 12 days, until the end of January next year. The three defendants have also been charged with economic and tax crimes, and one of them with drug-related offenses.
In Sweden, human trafficking is punishable by imprisonment from two to ten years, or from four months to four years, depending on how the court assesses the severity of the crime.