Ten modern-day slaves said to have been unaware there was a coronavirus pandemic have been freed from a Spanish cannabis farm where the drug was being produced for export to Britain.
The Chinese workers reacted to a police operation at the warehouse where they were working in the province of Barcelona by asking them why the officers were wearing face masks.
Detectives say Glasgow was the intended destination of most of the cannabis, although some was also going to be smuggled into the Netherlands.
Four of the eight people arrested and accused of crimes including membership of a criminal gang, human trafficking and drugs offences, have been remanded in prison after appearing before an investigating judge in a closed court hearing. They are all Chinese.
Police say the eight men and two women freed had been smuggled into Spain via Eastern Europe with false travel documents and put to work in conditions of “semi slavery” in warehouses where the cannabis was farmed which they had been kept in for more than a year.
A spokesman for the regional Mossos d’Esquadra police confirmed: “Eight people have been arrested, four of whom have been remanded in custody, and eight men and two women who were being kept prisoner and exploited inside warehouses where cannabis was being farmed have been freed.
“The criminal organisation was sending the drugs that were produced to the UK and the Netherlands.
“Glasgow was the main destination.
“The Chinese workers that were freed had been deceived about what they were gong to be doing here and once in Spain, they were made to work in infra-human conditions.
“The investigation that led to the arrests was launched at the end of 2019.”
The Mossos d’Esquadra added in a statement:” Around 5,500 cannabis plants have been seized along with 60 kilos of the drug that were ready to be sent and nearly POUNDS 40,000 in cash.
“The investigation remains open and further arrests have not been ruled out.”
The people smuggling that led to the death of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a lorry in Essex in October 2019 has been linked to cannabis farming in the UK.
A 15-year-old boy who died in the lorry had said he intended to work at an illegal cannabis farm once he got to Britain.
The high price of cannabis in the UK is believed to have been behind the interest of the alleged gang leaders arrested in Barcelona in the British market.
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