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Labor slavery. 35 suspects arrested in SP operation in Alentejo

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1 year ago

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According to the SP, about 65 searches were carried out in residential and non-residential premises in the Alentejo region. As a result of these steps, 35 people were arrested.


It’s about suspicion. crimes human trafficking, criminal association and money laundering🇧🇷 Among the alleged crimes is the exploitation of hundreds of foreign workers in agricultural fields in the Alentejo region and in the center of the country. The suspects enriched themselves from the wages of the victims, paid by their employers.


In a statement The SP indicated that “she carried out today, as part of the Lisbon DIAP investigation, an extensive police operation involving about 400 officers in various cities and districts of the Baixo Alentejo region, executing sixty and five home and non-home search warrants, as well as the arrest of thirty-five men and women outside the crime scene.”.

This operation of the judicial police was concentrated mainly on the Alentejo, namely in the regions of Beja and Cuba, with the participation of several inspectors. The detainees have already begun to arrive at the premises of the SP in Lisbon and are due to be presented to the judge only on Thursday..

The victims also began to be heard, the RTP found out.


The suspects, aged between 22 and 58, are of foreign and Portuguese nationality and “have strict charges of crimes of the criminal community, human trafficking, money laundering, forgery and other crimes.”🇧🇷 Moreover, are part of a “criminal structure that exploits the labor of immigrant citizens, most of whom are lured to their countries of origin, such as Romania, Moldova, India, Senegal, Pakistan, Morocco, Algeria and others, to come and work in exploitative agriculture in this region of our country..

In this operation, according to the SP, various state and non-state organizations cooperated both in logistical support and in the direction of the victims. According to the same source, this network was formed by foreigners, namely Romanian families and some Portuguese, who gave them support.

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Under the scheme, the suspects counted on the cooperation of a lawyer from the village of Alentejo in Cuba, who helped in the creation of ghost companies and falsification of documents.



The alleged victims are migrants who entered Portugal illegally to work on farms. The network will keep these foreign nationals in slavery, without access to a significant portion of their wages, under the threat of physical violence and forced labor.

In their countries of origin, victims would be attracted by the promise of a better life in Portugal, housing rights, working conditions and decent wages. But all this would have been just a trap of an organized network that operated from the district of Beja with members from Eastern Europe, as well as from India, Pakistan or Timor.


The JV investigation began about a year ago and focused on the recruitment of foreign workers by this criminal network with the promise of work and housing.

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