A couple have been jailed for a total of 25 years after smuggling at least 29 vulnerable people into the UK and forcing them to work for free at a car wash and live on property described as the “gateway to hell”.
Maros Tancos and Joanna Gomulska, both 46, kept the victims “prisoners” in misery at the Bristol home and subjected them to beatings and death threats, a court heard.
The victims were forced to work without pay at the Tancos car wash business and then to work for pay at night, such as catching chickens, packing milk and sorting packages, with the couple spending their wages on second-hand cars and games of chance
One was forced to work at a car wash with a broken arm, while another fled after becoming pregnant and giving birth to a malnourished baby.
Some of the trafficked people had been raised in orphanages in Slovakia and the couple promised them a better life.
Tancos was jailed for 16 years and Gomulska received a nine-year prison sentence at Bristol Crown Court on Wednesday, after being convicted of modern slavery offenses in April.
Mark Morrison, a lead investigator for the National Crime Agency (NCA), said living conditions included dirty mattresses on the floor and “disgusting, dirty carpets, blankets and bedding”.
He told Sky News: “There are multiple accounts of violence against them with beatings. The mental anguish these men and women have gone through is absolutely abhorrent.”
Morrison added that Tancos had ties to children’s homes in his home country of Slovakia and had a “ready supply” of vulnerable victims.
People trafficked between 2010 and 2017 were in their late teens to early 30s and were predominantly men from Slovakia and Hungary who could not speak English.
Victims were falsely told that they would keep half of their wages each month, while the rest would go toward food and living costs.
During the three-month trial, the court heard that Tancos and Gomulska seized the victims’ identity documents, phones and bank cards, and opened their bank accounts with them, as well as applying for loans and credit cards in their names.
The NCA said nearly £300,000 was transferred from the victims’ accounts.
Tancos also failed to pay his victims £923,835 at the car wash, the amount they would have earned if they had been paid minimum wage during the eight-year period of the crime, the agency added.
The NCA was first alerted by the Slovakian authorities in 2017 that one of its citizens had “escaped from bondage” from an address in Bristol.
It prompted an investigation and Tancos and Gomulska were arrested in July of that year.
A total of 42 victims were interviewed by specialist agents and 29 declared in court the abuses they suffered.
Lead Specialist Prosecutor Ruona Iguyovwe said: “This is a truly heartbreaking exploitation case spanning almost a decade, where people were trafficked and subjected to a life of misery to line the pockets of two ruthless individuals.
“Referring to the house as a ‘gateway to hell,’ one victim’s account shows how they felt trapped, unable to seek help without identity documents, locked in the house and threatened.”
Reference-www.theguardian.com