“Unsanitary and dangerous working conditions”: LVMH subcontractors in the suburbs of Milan criticized

"We saw people coming in and out with big suitcases, but not the workers. They stayed inside. It was strange for a factory." On Via dei Giovi in Baranzate, a working-class town near Milan, in his garage opposite the three-story building, with its nameless mailboxes and black gates guarded by two mastiffs, Carlo wasn't surprised by the raid by the carabinieri at the end of May. "We suspected it was a clandestine clothing workshop with mostly Chinese workers, like the manager of the establishment," admits the thirty-year-old mechanic . "We only saw a few of them go out from time to time to pick herbs in the field at the end of the street. For the rest, they lived in seclusion day and night."

For the deputy prosecutor of Milan, Paolo Storari, who initiated the investigation, the activity of the workshop, a subcontractor of the luxury brand Loro Piana, owned by the French group LVMH , was largely illegal with a workforce "black and clandestine, living in unsanitary and dangerous working conditions".