An Indian fixer lured workers to Italy. They say he used threats, violence

Tara Chand Tanwar recruited hundreds into exploitative employment, according to an Al Jazeera-Lavialibera investigation.

Ladnun, India and Padua, Italy – When Sandeep migrated from India’s Rajasthan state to Italy in 2009, he was fulfilling a long-held dream of relocating overseas for a better life.

But in late 2015, the 42-year-old graduate suddenly lost his job, putting him at imminent risk of losing his residency permit in Italy.

Desperate for work, Sandeep was relieved when an acquaintance told him about a “friend” who was well-known among the Indian community in Italy for procuring jobs in exchange for a fee, he said.

After forking over a 5,000-euro placement fee, Sandeep accepted a job offer with a logistics cooperative that works with major Italian food retail companies, he said, only to find himself subject to conditions that resembled forced labour.

Sandeep’s supervisors would demand he work 11-12 hours a day, seven days a week, and refused to provide sick leave or an employment contract lasting beyond a few months, he said.

When he was not working, Sandeep shared a two-room apartment with 10 other people in the northern city of Padua, at the cost of 330 euros per month, he said.

Still, Sandeep said he dared not complain about his situation.

“I needed my contract to be renewed, otherwise I would have become an illegal migrant in Italy, thus I accepted every condition they imposed on me,” Sandeep, who requested to use a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera.

Sandeep’s story is not unique.

From 2012 to August 2022, hundreds of Indian citizens paid up to 20,000 euros each to Tara Chand Tanwar, an Indian citizen from Sujangarh, Rajasthan, to take up jobs in Italy, where they were subjected to exploitative working and living