The Cheltenham-based print waste recycling company Printwaste, has found itself caught up in a court case because of exploiting its labourers.
Printmonthly.com reported that Printwaste, a recycling company dealing with cardboard, packaging, print cartridges, wood and pallet, and other domestic waste, based in Cheltenham, UK is one of three recycling sites that were involved in modern day slavery.
This seems to be gang related and has been said to be the “UK’s largest investigation into modern day slavery” involving eight Polish nationals who “exploited workers in a range of UK businesses,” Printmonthly.com said.
This operation was found to have managed to falsely trap around 300 victims into slave labour, the Crown Prosecuting Service (CPS) found. The gang of eight human traffickers are estimated to have made about £2.46 million ($2.98 million/ €2.66 million) from the stolen wages. All eight have been convicted at Birmingham Crown Court and were given jail sentences, Printmonthly.com wrote.
Mark Paul, Head of the complex case work unit for CPS West Midlands told Materials Recycling World: ““This is the largest modern slavery prosecution of its kind in the UK and perhaps Europe. The scale of the operation was truly staggering, with millions of pounds netted by the crime group as a result of their callous and systematic exploitation of vulnerable members of the Polish community.”
