4 arrested in 1st case of 'urban gangmastering'

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 15 - Italian police on Wednesday arrested four people in Novara in what they called the first Italian probe into urban gangmastering.
    Three Pakistani citizens and an Italian were taken into custody on charges of recruiting foreigners abroad, mostly Pakistanis, and forcing them to sleep in small, overcrowded rooms and work for a pittance distributing leaflets in Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria and Val d'Aosta, working for as long as 17 hours straight.
    Police seized the old, rusting vans used to transport the men to the cities here they carried out what police called £slave labour".
    Gangmastering is rife among crop pickers and other farm labourers, mostly in southern Italy. (ANSA).