Ella Madsen

Information released by BBC news accused McDonalds of failing to spot signs of modern slavery in their workplace after police found victims of human trafficking working for the company.
A family-run human trafficking network, run by brothers Ernest and Zdenek Drevenak from the Czech Republic, had forced 16 victims to work at the fast-food restaurant in its UK Branch. The victims were all vulnerable, with most having experienced homelessness or addiction. They all earned at least the legal minimum wage, but nearly all their income – totaling over 215,000 dollars– was stolen by the gang.
Well-established signs of slavery, including paying the wages of four men into one bank account, were missed while the victims from the Czech Republic were exploited over more than four years.
Additional indicators of slavery were also missed, including but not limited to the victims working extreme hours, sometimes up to 70 – 100 hours a week. Also, at least 9 of the employees were registered as living at the same address.
The UN’s International Labour Organization says excessive overtime is an indicator of forced labor.
“It really concerns me that so many red flags were missed, and that maybe the companies didn’t do enough to protect vulnerable workers,” said Dame Sara Thornton, the former independent anti-slavery commissioner.
Det Sgt Chris Acourt, who led the Cambridgeshire Police investigation, said there were “massive opportunities” that were missed to detect the slavery and alert authorities sooner. “Ultimately, we could have been in a situation to end that exploitation much earlier had we been made aware,” he said.
The victims’ ordeal ended in late 2019, after some of the victims contacted Czech police, who informed their British counterparts. Several times, some of the victims escaped their captors and fled back to the Czech Republic, only to be hunted down and trafficked back to Britain.
Police said the trafficked individuals’ passports were confiscated by the gang members and that the Drevenak brothers controlled them through fear and violence.
A representative from McDonalds UK said it had improved systems for spotting “potential risks,” while the British Retail Consortium said its members would learn from the case.
Three gang members were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court in May, but the information regarding the sentencing was not released to the public until Sept. 30, 2024.