All the accused were immigrants from Hungary and related to one another by birth or marriage.

All of the alleged victims were Hungarian nationals (of Roma background) recruited in Hungary.  None of the victims spoke any English.

The victims had all been relieved of all their travel documents by their Canadian hosts and were taken to various banks to open bank accounts and to obtain access and debit cards.  These items were confiscated from them. They were then prompted to file refugee status claims on the basis of fraudulent accounts of having been persecuted in Hungary because of their ethnicity.  They were then taken to local social services agencies to apply for monetary assistance. Money received from this source was retained by the accused. They were employed as labourers in construction businesses operated by some of the accused and not compensated or minimally compensated for their labour. Although the victims were housed and fed, it appears that they were subjected to intimidation and that their ability to move within the community was controlled. They were threatened with physical violence and death, as were their relatives in Hungary. Several of the recruits were told to participate in the theft of mail from Canada Post mailboxes. The objective was to obtain cheques from the mail, negotiate them by depositing them to bank accounts, and later withdrawing the cash.  It is estimated they obtained CAD1,000,000 using this method.

The accused profited from this human trafficking enterprise through the unpaid labour of the recruits, by retaining social assistance payments intended for others, and very substantially through the theft of cheques from the mail.