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five arrests after 24 men released from the caravan site, some held in captivity for almost 15 years

Twenty slaves today

were freed from slavery, on Sunday morning after a police raid found emaciated, hungry and living in "filthy and cramped" conditions on a caravan site in Leighton Buzzard.

Men - Poles, Romanians, Russians, British and -. They were forced to survive in a "state of virtual slavery" in place of the caravan of Green Acres, according to the Bedfordshire Police

The men ranged in age from about 20 to 50 years, all men who had been recruited vulnerable in shelters and the queues from Dole. Some are believed to have been in captivity for almost 15 years.

five people - four men and one woman - were arrested during the raid on the site, primarily travelers to 5:30 Sunday. The raid, with 200 officers, including armed officers, dog units and a police helicopter, followed by a long-term operation of infiltration. When police arrived on the scene, estimated that from 10 to 12 family-sized plots, they found men who believe that forced labor had.

one of them had dog feces on his clothing, and many were starving, said Chief Inspector Sean O'Neil, the major crimes unit Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, which was Centre attended by officers in the UK Human Trafficking.

explained that the men had not received payment for work physically demanding jobs, barely fed and given clothes. If they complained that they faced beatings.

"Men who are to where they were in poor health and living conditions in physical horribly dirty and narrow.

"We believe that some of them had been living and working in a state of virtual slavery, some just a few weeks and others up to 15 years."

have now been taken to a medical center where he assessed their health status.

Police said some of these men should be carefully re-introduced to good food, which gives much food at once can be dangerous, because their bodies have existed in the meager rations a long period of time.

"It was a recruiting center where people on their luck have been taken," said O'Neil. "They had met in the dining rooms and offices of profit and said given work clothes, a house and food.

These are people who are alcoholics or no family support, which makes them easy prey.

"We heard in one case a man was sitting on the railing of a bridge to commit suicide when he was discovered by the group and brought here for the site, after promising a paid job and a roof over your head. Everything was a lie. "

When new recruits arrived on the scene, they would have their phones confiscated and shaved his head, he said.

"They were told by people who had brought them up here" has no family now, we're family. "If they wanted to leave were threatened. "

The men are believed to have worked from 7 to 19:00 most of the time, to conduct a series of grueling manual tasks including asphalt.

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