Eight human traffickers, including a recruiter, have been jailed following what has been described as the UK's biggest ever modern slavery prosecution.

The recruiter, Julianna Chodakowicz was employed by recruitment agency E-Response in Worcestershire.

According to BirminghamLive, Chodakowicz had found jobs for 24 slavery victims from February 2015 to November 2015, who were placed with unsuspecting companies, some making sheds and fences. The victims were paid a fraction of their wages for long shifts by a Polish organised crime gang that Chodakowicz was a member of. The gang had opened and controlled the victims’ bank accounts.

According to an investigation by BBC Panorama, the Polish organised crime group was found to have enslaved hundreds of desperate and vulnerable people. The group promised their victims a better life before robbing them, embroiling high street banks, employment agencies and some of the UK’s biggest companies in a vast web of criminal exploitation.

The group was sentenced to a total of 35 years, a record for a human trafficking case. They were jailed for between four-and-a-half and 11 years.

Chodakowicz denied being involved in the conspiracy after her arrest, however phone records and text messages seized by police discredited her account.

It was found that she was being paid £100 for each job she gave to slavery victims and a weekly payment of £20 from each of their wages by her gang partner.

Chodakowicz was jailed for five years for her part in the slavery ring, which earned the gang more than £2 million.

The recruitment agency she worked for, E-Response, was founded by Paul and Joe Alekna, but has since been rebranded into Workforce which describes itself as an ‘award-winning recruitment, staffing and Workforce Solutions specialist with branches throughout Central England.’

The company is a member of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation as well as Gangmasters Licencing Authority and the Association of Labour Providers.

E-Response’s owners have previously been investigated after a transfer of ownership from one parent company to another, the transfer of a large amount of money and subsequent liquidation of one of the parent companies left its customers and creditors in debt for millions of pounds.

Staffing Industry Analysts reached out to the REC for comment. REC Chief Executive Neil Carberry said, “Modern slavery and human trafficking are abhorrent, and strong enforcement is required to ensure that they are tackled. REC members work with the authorities – as they did in this case – to protect people from exploitation.”

 “All our members sign up to a code of practice that commits them to good practice and high standards. We are in discussion with Workforce to better understand the circumstances," Carberry said.

SIA also reached out to Workforce, GLAA and ALP for comment but they have not yet responded.

Workforce has a policy on preventing hidden labour exploitation with their policy stating, “Workforce Staffing Ltd has a zero tolerance approach to modern slavery and is committed to acting ethically and with integrity and transparency in all of its business dealings and relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure that modern slavery and human trafficking are not taking place anywhere within its own business or in any of its supply chains.”