UK’s largest-ever modern slavery ring smashed

UK’s largest-ever modern slavery ring smashed

The largest-ever UK modern slavery ring, which forced more than 400 people to work for a pittance while their criminal masters earned £2 million, has been smashed.

The ring lured and then trafficked vulnerable victims to the UK with the promise of good money, but instead housed them in squalor, and used them as what a judge described as “commodities”.

Toilet
A leaky toilet which had to be plugged by the trafficked tenants, with an old duvet (West Midlands Police/PA)

Another man had to wash in a canal because he had no other access to water, while one house’s leaky toilet had to be plugged with an old duvet, such was the standard of disrepair.

Bentley
Ill-gotten gains included this Bentley GT Continental (West Midlands Police/PA)

Victims were reduced to recycling used cigarette butts off the street, and going to soup kitchens and food banks to get enough to eat.

Meanwhile, the gang’s bosses lived the high life off the backs of those they exploited, sporting lavish clothes, and driving luxury cars, including a Bentley.

After the end of two trials, it can now be reported how five men and three women, all originally from Poland, exploited their destitute victims for pure “greed”.

They have all now been convicted of modern slavery offences and seven of their number, of money laundering.

Ignacy
Ignacy Brzezinski, was a key co-conspirator along with his wife, Justyna Parczewska (West Midlands Police/PA)

At the end of the second case last month, a jury at Birmingham Crown Court convicted two men, 52-year-old Ignacy Brzezinski, of Beechwood Road, West Bromwich, and Wojciech Nowakowski, 41, of James Turner Street, Birmingham, of modern slavery offences.

A third, Jan Sadowski, 26, of Dartmouth Street, West Bromwich, admitted his part on the first day of trial.

Justyna
Justyna Parczewska was the matriarch of the operation and enjoyed the spoils of slavery ring (West Midlands Police/PA)

She said: “As the head of the family, he set the tone of the operation, and also enjoyed the fruits of the conspiracy, riding round in his Bentley and a fleet of high performance cars at his disposal.

“His life of leisure was also financed from complainants.”

The court heard that having been given bail after breaking his leg falling down the stairs during the trial, he had gone on the run since conviction, having “abused the compassion of the court”, the judge added.

Jailing Nowakowski for six-and-a-half years, Judge Stacey described him as a one-time victim of the conspiracy who had risen to become a “spy and enforcer” for the gang.

She said: “He was fully embedded and his role was to keep the conspirators in line.

“Described as a top dog and perhaps a sergeant major, he enjoyed the power over the others.”

She accepted Nowakowski had suffered a “hard life”, and “battled alcoholism as well, to the point of losing his toes to frostbite after falling asleep in the snow in Poland, after drinking too much”.

Judge Stacey, jailing father-of-two Sadowski – the only defendant to plead guilty – for three years for his “lesser role”.

However she said he had been integral to setting up trafficked victims’ bank accounts, for the benefit of the gang’s bosses.

At a previous trial ending in February, leading conspirator Marek Chowanic, along with Ignacy’s cousin, Marek Brzezinski, recruitment consultant Julianna Chodakiewicz, Natalia Zmuda and Justyna Parczewska, the group’s matriarch, were all convicted of their roles.

At their sentencing, Judge Stacey said their “degradation” of fellow human beings had been “totally unacceptable”, jailing the five for between 11 and four-and-a-half years.

Marek
Marek Chowanic, who was a leading conspirator (West Midlands Police/PA)

She added: “Any lingering complacency after the 2007 bi-centenary celebrations of the abolition of the English Slave Trade Act was misplaced.

“The hard truth is that the practice continues, here in the UK, often hiding in plain sight.”

Squalid
Squalid living conditions at one of the homes (West Midlands Police/PA)

In some cases, the gang waited outside the front gates of jails in Poland, to approach ex-cons who had just been released.

Victims, aged 17 to over 60, were housed across at least nine different addresses in West Bromwich, Walsall, Sandwell and Smethwick, crammed up to four to a room, fed out-of-date food, and forced to scavenge for mattresses to sleep on.

Julianna
Julianna Chodakiewicz, who also worked at a recruitment consultancy where some of the victims were hired (West Midlands Police/PA)

If any complained, gang enforcers would humiliate, threaten or beat them up, while “house spies” – previously trafficked individuals turned trusted informers – kept an eye on the workers.

On several occasions, anti-slavery investigators with charity Hope for Justice, and West Midlands Police, uncovered shocking brutality against those who stepped out of line.

One man who complained about living conditions and pay had his arm broken, was refused medical care, and then ejected from the accommodation because his injury left him unable to work.

Marek
Marek Brzezinski, who is Ignacy’s cousin (West Midlands Police/PA)

The gang seized identity cards, registered victims for National Insurance and opened bank accounts in the victims’ names using bogus addresses, while their criminal masters also claimed benefits without their knowledge.

The ring also infiltrated a recruitment agency, meaning work could be directly sourced, without raising suspicions with third parties.

Natalia
Natalia Zmuda, who had had a relationship with Chowaniec (West Midlands Police/PA)

When one worker died of natural causes at an address controlled by the gang, Parczewska ordered that his ID and personal effects be removed from his pockets before paramedics arrived.

Judge Stacey said the conspiracy, which ran from June 2012 until October 2017, was the “most ambitious, extensive and prolific” modern day slavery network ever uncovered.

Wojciech
Wojciech Nowakowski, who took victims to cash points to withdraw their wages (West Midlands Police/PA)

The gang operation was smashed after victims were uncovered by anti-slavery charity Hope for Justice.

The charity said 51 of the victims eventually made contact through its painstaking outreach efforts at two drop-in centres.

Jan
Jan Sadowski, a cousin of the Brezinski family, admitted his part in the slavery ring (West Midlands Police/PA)

West Midlands Police then launched an investigation in February 2015.

It has led to what is believed to be the biggest such modern slavery prosecution of its kind in Europe.

The judge praised police but also the charity’s “absolutely remarkable” work, adding: “One wonders how long this would have gone undetected and flourished, otherwise.”

Opening the second of two trials, Caroline Haughey QC, prosecuting, said: “When you are deprived of your freedoms and exploited for your weakness, that is criminal – and it is of such exploitation and degradation that this case concerns – where human beings have become commodities.”

Chowanic, 30, of Mount Street, Walsall, Marek Brzezinski, 50, of Lindley Avenue, Tipton, Chodakiewicz, 24, of Evesham, Worcestershire, Zmuda, 29, of Canute Close, Walsall, and Parczewska, 48, of Beechwood Road, West Bromwich, were jailed in March.

Chowanic was jailed for 11 years, Marek Brzezinski, nine years, Chodakiewicz, five-and-a-half years, Parczewska, five years and Zmuda, four-and-a-half years.

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