McDonald’s Location Employed ‘Modern Slaves’ in Human Trafficking Ring, According to Report

McDonald’s has been enjoying a spate of good publicity lately, with its highly successful summer meal deals that have since been extended to the fall.

But a new report threatens to leave a stain on the company’s good name, as it was revealed that a franchisee engaged in human trafficking involving what the arrest report is calling “modern slavery.”

The BBC is reporting that 16 people, originally from the Czech Republic, were forced to work in both a McDonald’s and a bread factory that supplied the major grocery chains in Great Britain.

Czech brothers Ernest and Zdenek Drevenak ran a gang that terrorized these victims, often threatening them with violence while stealing their wages. Per CBS News, police reported that “the gang raked in the equivalent of almost $290,000 from the four victims who worked at the McDonald’s alone over the course of their exploitation.” These victims of human trafficking also experienced housing instability, addictions, and sexual violence.

The victims were cramped into filthy trailers and made to live on pittance wages, according to the arrest report, which also revealed that the trailers lacked proper heating and had leaky roofs.

The victims were employed for four years, from 2015 to 2019, in bread manufacturers in Hertfordshire and north London, which supplied major supermarket chains in the United Kingdom, and at a Cambridgeshire location of McDonald’s.

McDonald’s UK Claims to Have ‘Improved Systems’

Following the arrest of the Drevenak brothers, McDonald’s UK issued a statement claiming that it had “improved systems” of spotting the signs of human trafficking.

However, the investigation revealed that there were plenty of signs that the corporation had missed. Amongst them:

• Wages paid to victims were deposited into bank accounts belonging to other people. At least four victims’ salaries totaling £215,000 were being deposited into one gang-controlled account at the McDonald’s.
• One of the gang members completed employment applications, filled out by someone who could sit in on interviews as a translator because the victims didn’t speak English.
• At McDonald’s, victims put in a lot of overtime — up to 70 to 100 hours per week. One victim’s shift lasted thirty hours. According to the UN’s International Labour Organization, an indication of forced labor is excessive overtime.
• The registered address belonged to multiple employees. In North London’s Enfield, nine victims worked at the bakery and resided in the same terrace house.

Worst of all, there were instances where the victims would escape working at McDonald’s or the bread factory and return to the Czech Republic — only to be tracked down by the gang and trafficked back to Britain to work in slave conditions. The stolen wages from McDonald’s and the bakery were then used by the gang to purchase luxury cars, jewelry, and even a massive property.

‘Red Flags Were Missed’

The human trafficking ended in 2019 when one of the victims returned to the Czech Republic and alerted the police, who then tipped off the British police.

“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, in a statement to the BBC following a review of the findings.

“Ultimately, we could have been in a situation to end that exploitation much earlier had we been made aware,” agreed Det. Sgt. Chris Acourt, who led the Cambridgeshire Police investigation.

While the British Retail Consortium stated that “it is important that the retail industry learns from cases like this to continually strengthen due diligence,” it will not change what happened to the victims.

“I do feel partially exploited by McDonald’s because they didn’t act,” one of the victims said to the BBC. “I thought if I was working for McDonalds, that they would be a little bit more cautious, that they will notice it.”

If you suspect that someone is a victim of human trafficking, call the toll-free (24/7) National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-3737-888 (1-888-373-7888). Or, text HELP or INFO to BeFree (233733).