Indian restaurant owners arrested in human trafficking inquiry

Two owners of a chain of Indian restaurants in the Netherlands have been arrested as part of an investigation into suspected human trafficking.

Europol and the Dutch labour inspectorate carried out a probe into allegations that a rule making it easier for Asian restaurants to hire specialist chefs from outside the EU was being widely abused.

The restaurant owners are said to have hired staff from India as chefs but employed them in non-specialist roles such as cleaning, washing up or waiting tables.

Labour inspectors also found the employees were working between 60 and 80 hours a week, rather than the 38 that was allowed under the terms of their work permit, and were being underpaid or not paid at all for the extra hours.

The two suspects owned eight restaurants that were part of a nationwide chain with branches in Utrecht, Amsterdam, The Hague, Hilversum and Hoofddorp.

Europol said around 70 staff had been hired on false premises, contributing around €4 million of unpaid labour. The investigation also covered allegations of similar abuses in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

The owners arranged their workers’ housing and allegedly fined them if they left before the end of their contract, which deterred the victims from contacting authorities.

“There are also indications that their families in their home countries were put under pressure and threatened with violence by the suspects in order to make the victims work harder and prevent them complaining to the managers of the restaurant chain,” the inspectors wrote.

The Dutch government introduced a simplified work permit system for Asian chefs in 2019 to address a labour shortage, but scrapped it three years later after inspectors found evidence that it was being abused by employers.

Inspectors visited 50 restaurants in 2021 and 2022 in a mix of randomised checks and others targeting high-risk establishments, which found 60% of the high-risk restaurants and 45% that were selected at random breached the rules at least once.