How did I become a victim of a modern slavery gang?

Eight human traffickers have been sentenced as a result of the largest lawsuit in slavery ever organized in the UK.

The traffickers, who belonged to a Polish criminal group, enslaved hundreds of desperate and vulnerable people.

They promised a better life for their victims before stealing them – blurring commercial banks, employment agencies and some of the biggest UK companies into a vast network of criminal exploitation.

Five gang members have already been jailed, this can now be reported, and three more will be sentenced later.

BBC Panorama has been following the investigation for two years.

"I thought, why not?

"The worst thing I've ever done [was] leaving the Foreign Legion, "says Mariusz Rykaczewski. Another two years and I would have a pension. "

The former soldier does not look like a victim. But, desperate to get out of Poland, he cracked for the false promises of a gang of slaves.

"I had problems with the police," he told Panorama, "I wanted to go to another country, but I did not have the money to travel."

He was approached by two men who offered him to travel, to stay and work for free in the UK: "I think it's a joke," he says. "Then they called me the next day and I thought," why not? "

Marek Brzezinski, Julianna Chodakowicz and Marek Chowaniec (from left to right) were sentenced at the end of the first trial.

But once in the UK, he was enslaved, robbed, beaten, starved and humiliated.

The gang that exploited it is the largest that has been successfully pursued in Europe.

Mariusz gave up his legal right to anonymity to tell his story. He does not want others to suffer as he did.

"I want them to pay for what they did," says Mariusz. "I'm not scared anymore."

& # 39; Digging one's heart & # 39;

It took nearly four years for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to bring the case to justice.

Mariusz was one of 66 witnesses to have provided evidence at the Birmingham Crown Court. The jurors had to examine evidence extracted from 250,000 pages in two cases lasting about six months.

Senior prosecutor, Caroline Haughey QC, described the investigation as "the biggest human trafficking case ever recorded".

"It eliminates a very large organized crime group and tears their heart," she says.

Natalia Zmuda and Justyna Parczewska (from left to right) were also found guilty in the first trial

The gangs are mainly Roma, from Poland. They came to the UK especially to trade their compatriots.

Five members were sentenced in February, this can now be reported.

Julianna Chodakowicz, 24, Marek Brzezinski, 50, Marek Chowaniec, 30, Justyna Parczewska, 48, and Natalia Zmuda, 29, were sentenced to 39 years – a record for a case of human trafficking.

They were imprisoned between four and a half years and eleven years.

Three other traffickers: Ignacy Brzezinski, 53, Jan Sadowski, 28, and Wojciech Nowakowski, 42, were also convicted and will be sentenced at a later date.

Brzezinski and Nowakowski were both found guilty of offenses related to modern slavery, while Sadowski acknowledged his share on the first day of the trial.

Alcoholics or drug addicts

In addition to exploiting slaves for work, the gang used their identity to commit both bank fraud and profits.

"The multiplicity of crime is extraordinary," said Ms. Haughey. "The victims are there to be exploited in any way possible."

"The majority of our complainants are homeless, financeless and desperate, many of whom have mental health problems, many of whom are alcoholics or addicts."

Wojciech Nowakowski, Jan Sadowski and Ignacy Brzezinski (from left to right) were sentenced at the end of the second trial

The traffickers brought the victims to the UK with bus tickets and the promise of a well-paid job.

Once there, they were taken to squalid terraced houses in West Bromwich and Birmingham. They were detained, unemployed, under surveillance for weeks, while debts accumulated.

Every cigarette, every piece of stale food they were given was added to the account. Slowly, regularly, they were trapped.

"It's the phase of isolation," says detective chief detective Nick Dale. "Later, there are threats … The feeling that traffickers are ubiquitous:" When they leave the house, we'll meet you again; you will go to the woods and we will dig a hole ".

Police photos show mattresses that appeared to have been dragged into the street to allow slaves to sleep. Their rooms were narrow and filthy.

"A man described washing himself with water from the cbad," Ms. Haughey said. "Others have said that they ate on skips because the food was so bad, it's heartbreaking."

Mariusz says the traffickers also supplied the slaves with alcoholic beverages, further plunging them into debt and making the victims more docile.

"It was always noisy at home, crazy," he recalls. "There was no place where you could go, and they were always watching you."

Chief Prosecutor Caroline Haughey, QC, said the investigation was "the biggest human trafficking case to date".

The jurors learned how the traffickers placed moles in employment agencies to put their slaves to work.

Julianna Chodakowicz was employed by E-Response in Worcestershire. She provided 23 workers at a fencing company that supplies large DIY retailers.

Chodakowicz had relations with another member – Marek Chowaniec – who had brought slaves into the country.

The orderly hierarchy that Chowaniec worked on included the head of the family Ignacy Brzezinski and Justyna Parczewska – the gang matriarch.

When a slave died of natural causes, she ordered a gang official to empty his pockets before calling the authorities.

The other convicts were supervisors and so-called "infantrymen" who controlled the slaves in the houses.

"Every day we worked an hour and a half and I picked vegetables in the rain," says Mariusz.

"No toilets, no shower in the house.Friday, the trafficker comes to pay me and pays me – sometimes £ 40, sometimes £ 25. The maximum I had was £ 75.

"The traffickers opened bank accounts on behalf of all, with an address that they control."

Many slaves were forced to open multiple accounts. The detectives identified 81 in total. These were regularly emptied by the traffickers.

Video surveillance obtained by the police shows gang leaders making numerous withdrawals using a stack of bank cards. When Mariusz complained to his captors, the response was violent.

"They beat me," he says. "He hit me and kicked me, he broke my ribs, he gave me black eyes, I slept with a knife." under my pillow in case they come back. "

& # 39; They were all terrified & # 39;

Desperate to flee, Mariusz received a number for the Salvation Army's helpline. He purrs all the time and responds to calls from victims of modern slavery. The staff is trained to help people break free.

"The woman, she told me what to do," says Mariusz.

"One night, I just left the house and ran to the nearest police station."

Mariusz was interviewed and taken to a Salvation Army shelter. The charity has contracted with the government to help the slaves and rehabilitate them.

Last year, 3,354 people were taken in charge. The numbers in question have increased each year over the past seven years.

The Salvation Army and Hope for Justice, an anti-slavery charity, work closely with the police.

Source: Crown Prosecution Service

One of his employees noticed that many men came to his canteen in West Bromwich with the same story as Mariusz.

"We started saving them one by one," says Kevin, a former detective working for the badociation.

"We organized rendezvous points near the place where they lived and recovered them, they were all terrified."

Police video interviews with escaped slaves capture their terror. One after the other, they describe the beatings, the exploitation and the humiliation.

The only woman known to have been enslaved by the gang is sitting in a red parka, arms clenched between her legs, while she tells the threat of a trafficker: "He said," I I'm going to break your bones, "she told the detectives, who also threatened to sell her for prostitution if she refused to do so.

What strikes in all accounts is their similarity.

& # 39; One story & # 39;

"Stories are layered," said Haughey. "There are thousands of documents in this case, but they tell only one story."

Despite successful prosecutions, DCI Dale warns that it would be wrong to imagine that the conviction of this gang puts an end to the problem.

"We can not maintain him in a state of existence," he says. "We need the public, the employers and the banks to act if they see something suspicious – do not close your eyes."

Mariusz's testimony was crucial to these lawsuits. But things did not end well for the former foreign legionnaire.

The crime that led him into the arms of the traffickers eventually caught up with him. Hearing that he was in the UK, Polish prosecutors issued a European arrest warrant against him.

He has now been deported to Poland to serve a one – year sentence.

"It's good, I've lived worse," he told the show on the day of his extradition. "I'll be fine."