Italian police on Tuesday arrested 13
people accused of being a criminal ring of gangmasters who
systematically exploited foreign farm labourers in the fields of
Puglia.
The labourers, many of them migrants, lived in shanty towns at
Borgo Mezzanone near Foggia.
They were allegedly paid slave wages to fill 56 crates of
vegetables, mostly tomatoes, in eight hours of backbreaking
work, police said.
To add insult to injury, police said, they were forced to pay
out five euros from their scanty wages to the gangmaster who
recruited hem and brought them to the fields in his truck.
They were closely watched during their shifts, unable to take
breaks and regularly insulted, police said.
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said "gangmastering must be
stamped out, it is a criminal phenomenon that wounds people's
dignity".
Italy's foremost anti-gangmastering campaigner and only black
MP, Aboubakar Soumahoro, has recently become embroiled in an
alleged exploitation scandal that has hit the farm cooperatives
run by his wife and mother-in-law.
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