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GENEVA (AP) — A criminal court rules Friday on whether members of a billionaire family engaged in illegal human trafficking and mistreated their servants, mostly illiterate Indians, who were employed at their luxurious lakeside villa in Geneva.
Four members of the Hinduja family are accused of seizing workers’ passports, paying them in rupees – not Swiss francs — barring them from leaving the villa and forcing them to work excruciatingly long hours for a pittance in Switzerland, among other things.
Prakash Hinduja and his wife Kamal, as well as their son Ajay and his wife, Namrata, face prison sentences ranging from 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 years, if convicted in the trial that opened on June 10. Their business adviser, Najib Ziazi, is also on trial.
Last week, it emerged in criminal court that the family — which has roots in India — had reached an undisclosed settlement with the plaintiffs. Geneva prosecutors opened the case for alleged illegal activity including exploitation, human trafficking and violation of Swiss labor laws.
The family set up residence in Switzerland decades ago, and Prakash was already convicted in 2007 on similar, if lesser charges, though prosecutors say he persisted in employing people without proper paperwork anyway.
Swiss authorities have already seized diamonds, rubies, a platinum necklace and other jewelry and assets from the family in anticipation that they could be used to pay for legal fees and possible penalties.
Prosecutors say at times the staffers — in jobs like cooks or house help — were forced to work up to 18 hours a day with little or no vacation time off and for pay that was equal to less than one-tenth of the comparable amount required under Swiss law.
Employees worked even later hours for receptions and slept in the basement of the villa in the upscale Cologny neighborhood – sometimes on a mattress on the floor, prosecutors said. They described a “climate of fear” instituted by Kamal Hinduja.
Some employees allegedly spoke only Hindi and were paid their wages in Indian rupees in banks back home that they could not access.
A separate tax case brought by Swiss authorities is pending against Prakash Hinduja, who obtained Swiss citizenship in 2000.
Along with three brothers, he is a leader of an industrial conglomerate in sectors including information technology, media, power, real estate and health care. Forbes magazine currently puts the net worth of the Hinduja family at some $20 billion.