The Judiciary Police (PJ) detained four people, aged between 37 and 44, for “strong indications of the crimes of human trafficking, slavery and forgery of documents”. The victim, according to the PJ in a statement this Wednesday, is a 54-year-old man in Bragança.
The arrests took place as part of an operation conducted by the PJ’s Northern Directorate, which included carrying out several searches of houses and a camp.
“The investigation revealed that over the course of 17 years, the victim suffered, at the hands of the defendants, physical and psychological abuse, was exploited as a workforce, having been “rented” to third parties to carry out agricultural work, receiving the defendants the respective financial compensation for the services provided by the victim”, reads the published note.
No family, no documents
The victim does not have any family support and suffers from cognitive delay, which allowed the defendants to control and monitor them uninterruptedly, says the PJ, especially since the defendants had all their documents in their possession. All of this made her “especially vulnerable”.
The inhumane conditions to which she was exposed did not stop there. The PJ says that the man “lived in a degrading situation, spending the night in a van in a state of scrap, in a camp, without the minimum conditions of habitability, health, hygiene and food”.
Over the years, the victim accumulated health problems, since “the defendants never allowed her to be medically assisted, and not even when she suffered a serious accident did they allow her to resort to a hospital emergency”, the PJ also says, now that the operation conducted by the Northern Directorate has been completed.
Criminal record
The man managed to escape, despite permanent injuries to his lower limbs having “severely affected his mobility”. His escape allowed the PJ to intervene, with investigations into the facts and identification of the perpetrators of the crimes. The victim was immediately taken to a specialized Reception and Protection Center for victims of human trafficking.
The detainees have criminal records for crimes against property. They will be presented to the judicial authority for the first judicial interrogation and application of coercive measures, the statement indicates, although without specifying the date.
