The investigation into illegal labor recruitment at the American consulate construction sites in Milan brings the first practical results for workers: a few days after the receivership of the Caddell company (based in Alabama), an agreement was reached that workers will no longer work on Saturdays; they will not exceed 45 hours per week; food and lodging will no longer be deducted from their paychecks. At this point, the company, which won the 350 million contract, will have to hire more people and find a way to pay compensation for past issues. This fact will significantly alter the initially estimated costs.
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Meanwhile, the investigations coordinated by prosecutor Paolo Storari are expanding. In addition to the Caddell Construction company and its legal representative Ulkas Demir, another suspect was added two days ago, stopped by law enforcement while trying to escape. His name is Aji Appukuttan, born in India, 52 years old.
He was organizing to take a bus or another means of transport two days ago to escape. The Labor Protection Unit of the Carabinieri of Milan, who followed the investigations, stopped him.
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He was responsible for managing the staff. On the construction site, he allegedly also pressured workers, «ordering them not to speak and not to report to outsiders what was happening on the site». The man’s arrest – ordered by the prosecutor’s office after last Sunday’s arrest of the legal representative who was trying to board a flight from Orio al Serio to Istanbul – became necessary because, as stated in the provision, from the testimonies collected by the Carabinieri among the workers, «he wanted to escape from Italy, but he understood that flying is dangerous. So he was organizing himself, knowing that the Indian workers had spoken about him».
The man is described in the reports as the American multinational’s «watchdog» and is considered by investigators to be the «operational foreman» and intermediary of the exploitation system on the New Delhi-Milan axis discovered at the construction site.
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