For two years, Hamilton Spectator reporter Nicole O’Reilly followed the story of a gang led by Ferenc Domotor, 49, that enslaved men brought over illegally from Hungary and forced them to work construction sites in the Hamilton and Toronto area as plasterers and drywallers. Domotor and some other gang leaders were recently convicted of human trafficking and Domotor was sentenced to nine years in jail.
We asked O’Reilly about the slavery gang. Listen to her responses by clicking on the link beside her photo.
How did the guys under the control of the gang allow themselves to become slaves?
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From your investigation, did you get the sense there is more of this happening in Canada?
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What are the signs a contractor can look for to tell if the guys doing work on his sites might be in a similar situation as the victims of Ferenc Domotor?
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How big was the gang? How many slaves were involved?
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Can the men being freed be hired now legitimately?
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A Globe and Mail story claims this slavery gang was the largest human trafficking operation in Canadian history.
Do you hire any of Domotor’s men? If you think you did, let us know. We need to know more about how this gang operated, what made them successful for as long as they were in operation and what we can do to prevent this happening again. Email me, rkoci@canadiancontractor.ca or leave a comment at the bottom of this post. You can remain anonymous.
Jeeze Robert, you are supposed to tell us about this cheap labor source before they get shut down!!! I could put 20 or 30 to work this month. What a competitive advantage that would be!
All kidding aside, there are different shades of this happening all the time. They had the illegal construction workers in the GTA at about 250,000 (can’t recall which newspaper that was in).
Competing with companies with this kind of advantage is impossible.
Why do you think we are doing more upscale work?
Lawrence
Lawrence: The story was in the Toronto Sun. You are right, there are degrees of this happening all the time, but this is, frankly, shocking and a real black mark against our country and our culture. The conditions these men lived under was appalling. They were being starved and threatened with violence. I can barely imagine this kind of thing happening in Canada, yet there it is.