Police said in a statement to the BBC that the Indian workers had been promised permission to enter Italy and seasonal work permits by their employers before coming to rural Verona.
They were asked to pay 17,000 euros ($18,554, £14,293) or 1.5 million rupees each, a significant sum for the workers, many of whom come from poor families. Police said some used family assets as collateral to raise the money, while others borrowed money from their employers.
Upon arrival, they were required to work 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a mere €4 an hour. And even that amount was never paid to them, as it was used to pay off debts owed to their employers.
Upon arrival in Italy, their passports were confiscated and they were forbidden to leave their “old” apartment.
“Every morning the workers would crowd into vehicles covered with tarpaulins and hide among crates of vegetables, waiting until they could arrive in rural Verona to start work,” a police statement said.
A search of their apartments found the workers were “forced to live in unsafe and degrading conditions” and “in complete violation of health and hygiene regulations”, it added.
The rescued workers have had their passports returned and are being relocated to safer housing and working conditions with help from social welfare agencies and immigration groups.
Undocumented workers throughout Italy are often subject to a system known as “caporalato”, a gang-management system in which middlemen hire workers illegally and then force them to work for very low wages. Even workers with regular documents are often paid much less than the legal wage.
According to a study by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, in 2018, almost a quarter of the Italian agricultural workforce was employed in this way. The practice also affects workers in the service industry and construction sector.
In Italy, the job was made illegal in 2016 after an Italian woman died of a heart attack after working 12-hour days picking and sorting grapes. She was paid €27 a day for the job.
