Several media outlets have today published a network of trade and labour exploitation of migrants in Rioja Alavesa. At least 15 people were caught in this network and forced to work in miserable conditions: they worked twelve hours a day and every day of the week, from Monday to Sunday.

At present, the 15 persons operated by the network are from Portugal. They apparently remained in Portugal and took to Rioja Alavesa to force them to work in appalling conditions. The Spanish Government has also explained that the "unhealthy state of the buildings where the workers were housed".

Some of those caught in the network, after several months of work for the exploitation network, were "indebted" to those responsible. They told the workers that they had a huge economic debt to the heads of the network and forced them to act in these conditions of misery in order to be able to pay that supposed debt.

In addition to setting up disproportionate days, they have announced that "coercion, threats and abuses of power" were common. Taking advantage of the "situation of economic dependence" of the detected migrants, the network managers controlled and conditioned everything they did in daily life, both in the work environment and outside it, and they had to have their permission so that workers could do anything.

The network investigation began at the end of last February, when one of the victims managed to escape and reported on what she had suffered. Two responsible members of the network have recently been arrested.