The Bulgarians were reportedly being enslaved and held against their will by the 29-year-old suspect who, according to newspaper Correio da Manhã, is the head of a mafia ring and was known in his local village of Carrazeda de Ansiães by the nickname Jardel.
The ring is understood to be family-run and recruited compatriots, in some cases entire families including minors, in Bulgria, on the promise of a better life in Portugal.
The victims were reportedly promised a salary, accommodation, transport and food in exchange for fruit-picking and other farm labour.
Instead they were all kept in cramped conditions in the basement of a double-story building, without bathroom facilities, while ‘Jardel’ lived in comfort on the first floor, the newspaper claims.
The victims are also said to have been left to starve and often violently awoken to work longs days in Carrazeda or Macedo de Cavaleiros.
They had no days off and were apparently told that if they wanted to leave they would have to pay €1,600.
Eventually two of the victims managed to escape and reported the goings-on to GNR in Mirandela, some 40 kilometres away, who alerted the appropriate authorities, who in turn freed the other seven victims from the basement.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, PJ police confirmed a foreign national had been arrested on suspicion of people-trafficking, kidnapping and slavery in northern Portugal.
The PJ said the arrest was part of an investigation in which a “criminal group with family ties” was identified on suspicion of “ongoing crimes of people-trafficking for work exploitation.”
It described the victims as all being people with “financial difficulties” in their homeland, who were recruited by the suspects to work in farming in the Trás-os-Monte region, being promised employment, payment and dignified living conditions.
The PJ’s statement adds the victims had their passports taken from them upon arriving in Portugal, and were “forced to work against their will, under the threat of physical and psychological violence, and coerced to work many hours a day (from 5am to 10pm) without days off and without pay.”
This had, according to the PJ, been ongoing at least since April until June this year, when two of the victims manage to escape.
All of the victims are understood to have been helped by Portuguese authorities to return to Bulgaria.
The main suspect was arrested and extradited after a European arrest warrant was issued as part of the investigation.
It was the second such case in the space of a week to be announced by Portuguese authorities.
Earlier in September, on the 25th, PJ police also announced the arrest of a 40-year-old woman on suspicion of kidnapping, slavery and people trafficking in central Portugal.
The arrest took place following an investigation that had further led to the detention of three other people, in July, who were suspected of having recruited the potential victims over at least the past three years.
Among the victims were transient and homeless people from Setúbal.
Victims were reportedly offered work, accommodation and food in Lourinhã but were kept against their will and forced to do hard manual labour without payment and threatened with violence if they attempted to leave.
In June this year the 2016 Global Slavery Index – the flagship research report published by the Walk Free Foundation – found around 12,800 people were thought to be trapped in modern-day slavery in Portugal.
That figure was up dramatically from 2014, when the Index reported only 1,400 cases in Portugal.
Nonetheless, despite the perhaps surprisingly high figures for one of Europe’s most undisturbed nations, according to the Index, Portugal is among the countries leading the charge against modern slavery, alongside The Netherlands, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Croatia, Spain, Belgium and Norway.