Quarry employees in RS were paid with crack – 04/16/2024 – Market

An operation by the Rio Grande do Sul Civil Police arrested five people and rescued three workers in a quarry in the rural area of ​​Taquara, in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre.

According to the police, the workers were kept in conditions similar to slavery and received payment in crack rocks.

“We found individuals sleeping in rooms where improvised accommodation was located, completely devoid of any sanitary conditions, disrespecting health, labor and tax standards,” said delegate Valeriano Garcia Neto, responsible for the action.

The rescued workers were sent to social assistance in Taquara for reception. “True zombies working for crack,” said Garcia Neto.

With the help of a sniffer dog, agents found packages of drugs hidden under tiles at the location.

Among those arrested is a person identified as responsible for recruiting workers. Quarry operators, responsible for transporting and selling sandstone extracted at the site, were also arrested. The material is widely used in civil construction in external works, such as sidewalks, gardens and walls.

The police investigated drug trafficking in the region for six months before launching operation Pó de Pedra II, in the town of Morro da Pedra. Search and seizure warrants and preventive arrest warrants were executed, with one arrest in the act.

The first phase of the operation, carried out in December, arrested a woman carrying drugs and another person who had an outstanding arrest warrant.

According to the delegate, access to the information that supported the police action occurred through emails and interceptions with judicial authorization, “which already reinforce the materiality of everything that has been investigated so far.”

According to him, in addition to irregularities in accommodation and drug trafficking, the irregular operation of the quarry also constitutes an environmental crime.

In a statement, the Taquara Department of Social Development, Labor and Citizenship said it was investigating the names of the workers involved with the police. “Psychosocial support and referrals for health monitoring will be made available, including the possibility of treating possible dependencies,” said the statement.

The secretariat also stated that the city’s Creas (Specialized Reference Center for Social Assistance) will make contact with family members and provide assistance in directing the rescued workers to the formal job market when they are reestablished.