Illegal gangmastering and labour exploitation: 16 individuals under investigation in Caltanissetta and Agrigento

Last November, the State Police and the Military Police conducted an investigation that involved the provinces of Caltanissetta and Agrigento, resulting in 16 individuals being investigated for labour exploitation and gangmastering. The Public Prosecutor’s Office in Caltanissetta, following the preliminary investigations, has brought sixteen individuals to trial for illicit intermediation in labour exploitation.

The workers were recruited and transported in vans, devoid of any safety conditions, to the countryside between Caltanissetta and Agrigento. The investigations, carried out by the State Police Mobile Squad and the NOR (National Operative Unit), have led to the establishment of serious indications of guilt regarding the crimes of labour exploitation and illicit intermediation aimed at recruiting low-cost labour to be employed in exploitative conditions by some agricultural entrepreneurs or landowners in the two provinces involved. They took advantage of the workers’ desperate situation, mainly foreigners, subjecting them to humiliating socio-economic conditions.

From phone interceptions, it was discovered that intermediaries maintained frequent contacts with entrepreneurs and landowners to agree on the number of workers they needed daily and the compensation to be paid. The middlemen would retain a portion of this compensation as payment for their intermediation activities. Investigations have also confirmed the existence of other indicators of labour exploitation as outlined by the law, in addition to wage disparities. These indicators include discrepancies in working hours, the absence of holidays and sick leave, the lack of mandatory medical check-ups and specific training courses, and the non-existence of personal protective equipment.