A 63-year-old man from Vietnam has been sentenced to 12 months in prison for human trafficking and possession of cannabis. According to the judge, the man is responsible for exploiting a Vietnamese woman in a cannabis farm in a warehouse in Wittelte.
A 61-year-old Vietnamese woman from Amsterdam was previously sentenced to two years in prison. Four others were sentenced to sixteen months in prison, eight of which were conditional.
The 63-year-old man stayed in the Czech Republic and, according to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), could not be found for a long time. Last year he was extradited, allowing his conviction to take place.
When the police arrived at the warehouse in Wittelte at the end of 2020, they expected to roll up a cannabis farm. However, it turned out that a woman was living and working among the thousands of plants, under appalling conditions.
The woman was in the Netherlands illegally and was exploited by her fellow countrymen. She took care of the plants and had to top them off when the time was right. It was cold and dark in the warehouse. The woman relieved herself in a garden chair with a hole in it, under which stood a bucket.
The convicted man’s lawyer questioned the exploitation of the woman from the start. According to him, she did the work voluntarily and lied about the exploitation.
The judge dismissed the defense. According to him, the vulnerability of the woman and the dominance that the group of perpetrators had over her were abused.
The woman does not speak Dutch and was completely dependent on others in the warehouse. The 63-year-old man had “no small role in this whole”, the judge ruled. A prison sentence of sixteen months would have been appropriate, but he took the passage of time into account, resulting in a prison sentence of four months less.