ESG Enforcement Tracker

Key facts:

In May 2024, members of a gang who trafficked and stole wages from 12 Eastern European workers were found guilty of related offences under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. In October 2024, sentence was handed down for Zdenek Drevenak, Jiri Cernohous, and Martin Slovjak, with a date for the sentencing of Monika Daducova to be fixed.

Victims, mostly poor individuals from the Czech Republic with little to no English, were enticed to the UK and forced to work in various places, including a McDonald’s in Cambridgeshire. While the offending behaviour began in 2012, it was not until October 2019 that one of the victims contacted the police in the Czech Republic, who in turn tipped off their British counterparts.

Following the tip-off, police discovered the victims housed in substandard and cramped accommodation in Enfield. Footage from a police raid on the house revealed inappropriate living quarters, including an unheated outbuilding and a garage. The police also discovered CCTV cameras inside and around the property, which the gang members used to monitor the victims.

One victim reported making a daily 13-mile bike ride from the house to the McDonald’s in which he and other victims worked long shifts of up to 30 hours. Another was made to work as a prostitute, first in a brothel and then on the streets.

The victims, most of whom had experienced homelessness or addiction, earned at least the legal minimum wage. The majority of their earnings, however, was withheld and paid into bank accounts that the gang controlled. Small sums were occasionally given to the victims under the false promise that money would eventually be paid in full. The passports and identity documents of the victims had also been taken away from them.

The fact that the wages of multiple workers were being paid into the same bank accounts was a red flag that not McDonald’s failed to identify, as was the practice of the victims’ job applications and interviews being written and attended by members of the gang, acting as ‘interpreters’.

Drevenak was jailed for 13 years, Cernohous for nine years, while Slovjak received four years’ imprisonment.

In a separate trial arising from the same circumstances, in October 2023, Ernest Drevenak, brother of Zdenek Drevenak, was found guilty along with Veronika Bubencikova of modern slavery offences. In December 2023, they were jailed for 12.5 years and 10.5 years, respectively.