Police officers from the Human Trafficking Department of the National Police Headquarters and the Criminal Department of the Wrocław Provincial Police Headquarters, cooperating with British officers from West Yorkshire, detained two Polish citizens: 51-year-old Edward P., known as Edek, and 33-year-old Franciszek Z., known as Saso. They were wanted by the British authorities under European Arrest Warrants. They turned out to be the leaders of an organized criminal group exploiting Polish citizens for slave labor in the United Kingdom.
As part of international legal assistance, the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales also asked the Wrocław District Prosecutor’s Office to conduct, among other things, searches of the detainees’ homes located in Poland.
The detained men are suspected of human trafficking. The victims were Polish citizens recruited in Poland under the pretext of well-paid jobs that the perpetrators were supposed to provide after their arrival in the United Kingdom. Police officers uncovered the scheme in 2016, when British officers began receiving information about the possible exploitation of Polish citizens. British police identified more than a dozen potential victims and began intensive cooperation with Polish police officers. In 2016, the first suspect in the case was arrested in the United Kingdom. A British court sentenced him to seven years in prison for crimes including human trafficking. From that time, joint Polish-British operational activities were launched to identify the group’s masterminds and leaders.
The operations were coordinated both by officers from the Human Trafficking Department of the National Police Headquarters and by the NCA liaison officer at the British Embassy in Warsaw. Since some of the injured parties may have returned from the United Kingdom to Poland, efforts were launched to locate them. These activities were conducted in the strictest secrecy, with the direct involvement of British police officers specially assigned to Poland.
The group’s leaders, suspected of founding and directing it, fled the British Isles in 2016 and have most likely been staying in Poland ever since. Effective cooperation between the Polish and British police forces, as well as between the Polish and British prosecution services, led to the arrest of both suspects. Edek and Saso were completely taken by surprise and had not realized that they had been located.
The court ordered pre-trial detention for both suspects. A decision on the possible extradition of the suspects to the United Kingdom will be made in the near future.