A man from Hâncești district was sentenced to eight years in jail for exploiting through labor ten Moldovan men in the Russians cities Smolensk and Moscow ten years ago. He promised salaries of over US$1,000 to the victims, but these were later forced to work without being paid, IPN reports.

The Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases said the ten victims were from Hâncești and Drochia districts. As not all of them had money to travel to Russia, the 46-year-old man paid himself for their trip by a minibus. When their arrived at the destination, the man collected victims’ passports on the pretext of making permits of stay and work contracts for them. The papers were returned to them only when these insisted on their return to Moldova, in one of the cases as a result of repeated altercations with one of the workers.

The men had to work from 8am until 8pm, being accommodated in wagons, by 5-6 persons in a wagon. They were fed free, but the food was of a poor quality and wasn’t at all diversified. They demanded to be paid, but the culprit promised they would get their salaries in the near future. He paid yet a part of the money to the men in Russia and later in Moldova, after he was denounced to the police.

Before the sentence was passed, one of the ten men died, while the worker with whom the culprit had altercations in Russia was diagnosed with epilepsy.

The man was sentenced to eight years in jail and was banned from working in the employment sector for a period of four years. He was also obliged to pay 50,000 lei damages to the worker he beat.

The criminal case was started in 2015 after the state of health of one of the men exploited in the spring and summer of 2013 worsened. The culprit was outside Moldova and had to be identified and the case was remitted to court in 2017.