Italy arrests 9 for exploiting Georgian workers

Rome: Nine people were arrested in Italy’s southern province Calabria on charges of exploiting Georgian workers.

Italian police in the southern city of Crotone arrested nine people on Thursday (January 30) for allegedly belonging to an organization that facilitated the recruitment, entry, and stay of Georgian nationals in Italy for labor exploitation. Seven of the arrested individuals are Georgian nationals, while two are Italian.

Four are being held in custody while the other five have been granted house arrest.

The operation was carried out between the Crotone and Catanzaro provinces. Three other alleged members of the criminal organization were abroad at the time of the arrests; warrants have been issued for them as well. Staff from the international cooperation service and the Interpol divisions of the Italian state police are actively searching for them.

The Crotone police headquarters noted in a statement that the inquiry had begun in July 2022 and had led to the discovery of an organizational structure under the direction of an Italian national who coordinated illegal activities through three women of Georgian nationality who had been given the task of luring Georgian women — in part through Facebook and Instagram ads — by promising them work in Italy in exchange for intermediary services paid directly by the foreign female workers to the criminal network.

The investigation made it possible to identify the people involved in the organization tasked with bringing the women from Georgia to Italy, accompanying them to specific homes in the Botricello and Cutro municipalities in order to be available for the organization, or directly to the employers themselves, who exploited their work and failed to provide them with any sort of contract.

As part of the operation, four properties were seized — two in Botricello and two in Cutro — that were used as a logistics base in which to keep the women while waiting for them to be placed in specific jobs.

The investigation began with a report to the police by one of the young Georgian women brought to Italy after being promised work. On her arrival, she was placed in a safe house in Botricello with ten other fellow Georgians.

Her passport was taken away from her and she was required to pay 700 euros for travel expenses. She was also forced to pay 10 euros a day for lodgings and 2 euros per meal. The young woman was later sent to work without a contract as domestic help with a family in Cirò Marina.

Through many wiretaps, the watching of dozens of hours of video surveillance, following suspects and victims, analysis of websites, and the locating of vehicle positions and movements via satellite, investigators were able to reconstruct the modus operandi of the organization under one of the suspected members of the criminal organization now in custody who coordinated the activities of three Georgian women who had been in Calabria for a significant amount of time.

Three other suspects now in custody wrote ads on social media and were tasked with handling the young women arriving in the country, who in order to work as domestic help and waitresses without any contract were forced to pay 500 euros.

The investigation found at least 30 similar cases and a partnership with a company offering services to families under the direction of one of the suspects now under house arrest.