Inside house of horrors dubbed 'gate to hell' where vile couple kept slaves

A vile couple who kept vulnerable victims as slaves and forced them to work for free have been jailed. Maros Tancos and Joanna Gomulska, both 46, were the ringleaders of a human trafficking and modern slavery operation in Bristol.

The couple persuaded dozens of vulnerable people to travel from Slovakia to work for them at a city car wash and carry out almost £1million of work for free. Tancos and Gomulska kept up to 10 people living in the three-bedroom house at a time, locking them inside when the couple went out.

Tancos exploited his links to orphanages and camps in Slovakia to recruit them, promising transport, a place to live and food, and a better life. Shocking photos reveal the squalor the slaves were forced to live in.

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Victims were led to believe they would get to keep half of their wages every month, while the other half would go towards food and living costs. Instead, they were kept locked up in squalor in the couple’s three bedroom home and forced to work for free.

Tancos’ co-conspirator, Gomulska, helped with arrangements to transport workers in the UK. She would take their identity documents and only release them when they were needed for applications like National Insurance numbers or bank accounts.

Gomulska would accompany victims to appointments and would act as the interpreter before taking their bank cards and pin numbers. Victims would work at Tancos’ car wash business during the day and were sent out to work catching chickens, packing milk or sorting parcels overnight.

NCA investigators found that Tancos and Gomulska failed to pay a minimum of £923,835 in wages, calculated if Tancos had paid his victims