The Civil Guard, within the framework of the “Action Plan against Trafficking in Human Beings and Labour Exploitation”, has carried out the operation “Espasmo”, in the province of La Rioja. A total of 48 Civil Guard agents, supported by Team Pegaso drones, have participated in an operation in which three people, aged between 44 and 52, have been arrested as alleged perpetrators, in different degrees of participation, crimes against workers’ rights, injuries and omission of the duty of relief.
The three detainees allegedly subjected to exploitative conditions around 60 extremely vulnerable foreign seasonal workers from North Africa, who had arrived in La Rioja to work on the harvest campaign. The migrants, some of them in an irregular situation, lived in unhealthy conditions under the constant threat of losing their only livelihood.
The house lacked adequate hygiene and ventilation and the workers had to pay between 120 and 140 euros per month for sleeping on mattresses on the floor. The agents also discovered that one of the inhabitants of the house, a citizen from Senegal, had been run over and assaulted for refusing to work in the harvest for six euros a day.
Operation Spasm
Operation Spasm was launched at the end of September after it became known that a seasonal worker had been forced by his employer to live in a house in Villamediana, during the harvest season.
The seriousness of the events led to the organization of a surveillance operation in the property, a villa owned by a banking entity and illegally occupied. During the operation, the agents observed that several vans left the property each morning loaded with seasonal workers, to move them to several vineyards located in Briñas, Logroño and Mendavia. The civil guards verified that the vehicles made strategic stops and that they adopted security measures to avoid being followed.
To verify the employment situation of the seasonal workers, the agents identified the drivers and occupants of the vans and searched the chalet, where about 60 workers stayed overnight, mostly from North Africa, 15 of them in an irregular situation.
Once informed of their employment rights, 17 of the seasonal workers denounced the precarious conditions in which they lived and worked. They revealed that they charged only eight euros per hour, that they worked nine hours, with a break of barely fifteen minutes, and that they had to pay four euros per day for transport to the vineyards, in addition to between 120 and 140 euros per month for accommodation. They also had to pay for the butane chocolates to cook, which further aggravated their precarious situation.
Once the corresponding complaints had been received, the persons concerned were arrested, the proceedings were investigated and the detainees were placed at the disposal of the judicial authority.