McDonald’s and supermarkets failed to detect slavery

Signs that victims of modern slavery were being forced to work in McDonald’s branches and factories supplying bread products to major supermarkets went unnoticed for years, the BBC has discovered.

The gang forced 16 victims to work in fast food restaurants or factories that supplied Asda, Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

Established signs of slavery, such as paying the wages of four men into one bank account, were overlooked while the victims in the Czech Republic were exploited for more than four years.

McDonald’s UK said it had improved its systems to spot “potential risks” and the British Retail Consortium said its members would learn from the incident.

Six members of a family-run human trafficking network in the Czech Republic have been sentenced in two criminal trials, which were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Reporting restrictions prevented most of the events from being reported, but BBC England was able to reveal the full extent of the gang’s crimes and the missed opportunities to stop them.

The nine victims were forced to work at a McDonald’s branch in Caxton, Cambridgeshire. The nine people worked for the Pitta Bread company, which has factories in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, and Tottenham, north London, producing own-label products for supermarkets. A total of 16 people were killed at both sites, two of whom worked at both McDonald’s and the factory.

The victims were all vulnerable, most had experienced homelessness or addiction, and earned at least the legal minimum wage, but almost all of their wages were stolen by the gang.

They lived on a few pounds a day in cramped accommodation such as leaky huts and unheated caravans, but police say their work involved buying luxury cars, gold jewelery and real estate in the Czech Republic for gangsters. It was discovered that it was funded by

There have been several cases in which victims have run away and fled home, only to be tracked down and trafficked to the UK.

The exploitation ended in October 2019 after the victim reported the incident to police in the Czech Republic, who in turn informed police in the UK.

But after reviewing legal documents from the gang’s trials and interviewing three victims, the BBC found that warning signs had gone unnoticed for at least four years.

Undetected red flags include:

The victim’s wages were transferred to a bank account in someone else’s name. At least four victims’ wages – totaling £215,000 – were paid into a single account controlled by the gang at McDonald’s. The victim did not speak English, and his job search was completed by gang members who were also able to hold sit-ins. About Job Interviews as Translators The victims worked extremely long hours at McDonald’s, up to 70 to 100 hours a week. One of the victims was working a 30-hour shift. The United Nations’ International Labor Organization says excessive overtime is a sign of forced labor. Multiple employees had the same registered address. The nine victims worked in a bakery and lived in the same terraced house in Enfield, north London.

Dame Sarah Thornton, the former independent anti-slavery commissioner who reviewed the BBC’s findings, said: “So many red flags went unnoticed and companies were not doing enough to protect vulnerable workers. I am very concerned that he did not.”

Sergeant Chris Acourt, who led the Cambridgeshire Police investigation, said a “huge opportunity” had been missed to detect slavery early and report it to the authorities.

“Ultimately, if we had been aware, we might have been in a position to end the exploitation sooner,” he says.

Like many victims, Pavel, who has waived his legal right to anonymity, was homeless in the Czech Republic when he was approached by the gang in 2016.

He said he was seduced by false promises of well-paying jobs in the UK where he could work legally at the time.

But the reality of what he experienced left an indelible scar, he said.

“The damage to my mental health cannot be reversed. It will always remain with me.”

Despite working 70 hours a week at a McDonald’s branch, he reportedly received just a few pounds a day in cash from his exploiters.

The gang, led by brothers Ernest and Zdenek Drebenak, confiscated the passports of all their victims and controlled them through fear and violence, police found.

“We were scared,” Pavel said. “When we tried to run away and go home, (Ernest Drebenak) had a lot of friends in our town. Half the town was his buddies.”

Melanie Lillywhite, from the Metropolitan Police, said the gangs “treated their victims like livestock” and gave them enough food “to survive.”

She said the victims were kept in “invisible handcuffs”, watched on CCTV, prohibited from using phones or the internet and could not speak English.

“They were really cut off from the outside world,” she says.

Although the gang were found guilty in court, Pavel believes McDonald also bears some responsibility.

“We feel exploited, in part, because McDonald’s hasn’t taken action,” he said.

“I thought if I worked at McDonald’s, they would be a little more careful, and they would notice.”

Two former colleagues told the BBC that the men’s unusual working hours and the impact this had on them were clear.

Like most McDonald’s, the Caxton store on the A428 is a franchise store, meaning an independent company pays the fast food giant to allow it to operate the restaurant.

The victims worked there from 2015 to 2019, but the store was run by two different franchise owners. I contacted both but received no response.

McDonald’s UK declined our request for an interview, but issued a statement on behalf of the company and its franchisees.

The newspaper said current franchisee Ahmet Mustafa was only “exposed to the full extent of these horrifyingly complex and sophisticated crimes” in the course of cooperating with police and prosecutors.

The company says it cares “deeply” for all its employees and will work with its franchisees to “work with governments, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and wider society to combat the evils of modern slavery.” “I will play my role.”

It will also commission an independent review in October 2023 to improve its ability to “detect and deter potential risks such as sharing bank accounts, long working hours and reviewing the use of interpreters in interviews.” He stated that he had taken the following measures.

The bakery company – Specialty Flatbread Ltd – ceased trading in 2022 and went into administration.

None of the supermarkets detected slavery while the victim worked at the factory between 2012 and 2019.

Dame Sarah said she expected retailers to have done “pretty thorough due diligence”, adding that typically retailers “take much more care with own-label products. Because reputation is at stake,” he added.

Sainsbury’s announced in 2016 that it would no longer use the company as an own brand supplier.

The others stopped shortly after police rescued the victim in 2019.

Asda told the BBC: “We are disappointed that this historic incident has been discovered in our supply chain,” adding: “We will review all identified incidents and act on what we learn.” Ta.

The company said it visited the site three times but stopped using the plant in 2020, focusing solely on food safety.

Tesco said an inspection backed by information from the anti-slavery charity Unseen “revealed labor practices” and the company “suspended all orders from the supplier” in 2020.

Waitrose said it pulled out in 2021 after the audit raised “concerns about factory standards and working conditions”.

The co-op said it had carried out “numerous” unannounced inspections, including interviews with staff, but had found no signs of modern slavery, adding that the company was “actively tackling this shocking issue in the UK and abroad.” There is,” he added.

M&S said it suspended and delisted the company in 2020 after it “became aware of potential breaches of ethical working standards through its Modern Slavery Helpline”.

The British Retail Consortium said employee welfare was “fundamental” to retailers and it would act quickly if concerns arose.

“Nonetheless, it is important that the retail industry learns from cases like this and continues to step up its due diligence,” it said.

Specialty Flatbreads director Andrew Sharanbooth did not respond to a written request for comment, but said in a phone call from the BBC that he had supported the police and prosecutors, and that the company had “followed a thorough audit by a leading law firm. “Everything we do is audited,” he added. What I was doing was legal. ”

He further added: “From our point of view, we weren’t breaking the law in any way. Certainly, in that there might have been solid signs and things like that, maybe what you say is That would be true, but that would be for the human resources department, which was on the front lines. ”

The Modern Slavery Act requires large companies, including McDonald’s and supermarkets, rather than factories, to publish annual statements outlining what they will do to tackle the problem.

Former prime minister Baroness Theresa May, who introduced the law as home secretary in 2015, acknowledged that the law had failed to protect the victims in this case and believed it needed to be “strengthened”. are.

The former prime minister, who currently chairs the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, said the incident was “frankly shocking” and said: “Big companies are not investigating their supply chains properly. ‘This shows that.

He said the global commission was considering what new laws were needed “to ensure companies take action.”

In response to this incident, the government stated, “Soon, we will take the following steps regarding the issue of modern slavery.”

The group said it was “committed to tackling all forms of modern slavery” and “will use every means necessary to go after gangs and employers, while ensuring victims receive the support they need.” Ta.

Additional reporting by Mary O’Reilly and Maria Jevstafjeva

You can find out more about organizations providing support to victims of modern slavery at bbc.co.uk/actionline.