A report by the independent anti slavery commissioner reveals the full extent of the gang’s operations and construction companies who “unwittingly” paid money into their accounts for workers, reports the Construction Enquirer.

The Operation Cardinas and Beyond report examines the fall-out of the investigation into a Romanian organsised crime group who placed more than 500 victims onto major projects between 2009 and 2018.

The criminals are now either in jail or awaiting sentencing while some of construction’s biggest names were interviewed as part of the report.

It stated: “The victims were usually employed as unskilled labour. Undertaking cleaning, or fetching and carrying jobs, they received less scrutiny than qualified tradespeople.

“Most were working on construction sites, but some were placed in the demolition sector and forced to do gruelling shifts without any training. The gang used a range of tactics to manipulate site security.”

The gang worked with corrupt testing centres to obtain fraudulent CSCS cards and the report highlighted “worrying systemic weaknesses in vetting and security.”

It stated: “For reasons of security and safety, most major contractors stipulate that workers must be registered and have their documentation checked before they can access a site.

“Given the rapid churn of workers, processing people places a heavy burden on resources. Responsibility is often passed down the supply chain: principal contractors will check right to work on their own employees and direct hires but rely on suppliers to manage the process in the tiers below them.

“In the best cases, sites have airport type scanners for verifying passports, but many locations rely on staff to do visual checks. Interviewees acknowledged the risk of sophisticated forgeries being missed.

“They also said that, without specialised training, site teams could struggle to understand complex visa arrangements. The standard of labour agency processes is variable. Some are relying on video calls and photocopies of passports, rather than face to face meetings, when recruiting new workers.

In Operation Cardinas, criminals habitually found ways to undermine apparently tight security, even on large sites.”