Report
Italian fashion brands presided over domestic sweatshops, investigation reveals
The workers were effectively enslaved by those exploiting their vulnerable status (many lacked residence permits) and were forced to work 14 hours a day, every single day of the year – including Sundays and holidays – for an hourly wage of €5.
It is a story of exploited and underpaid workers, conditions bordering on the inhumane and a severely degraded environment. Once again, it is a story where, at the very end of the illegal labor brokering chain, sits a high-fashion brand (in this case, two) reaping astronomical profits through systematic exploitation.
This is yet another investigation by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office into the world of fashion and luxury, targeting major brands that outsource production to other companies, which in turn subcontract to others, ultimately ending up in sweatshops, often run by Chinese nationals who exploit their own compatriots.
Two companies were placed under judicial administration on Tuesday, at the request of prosecutors Daniela Bertolucci and Paolo Storari: Alberto Aspesi SpA and Dama SpA. The former, famous for producing luxury down jackets, boasts a turnover of €40 million. The latter, based in Varese with an annual turnover of €122 million, sells knitwear under the Paul&Shark brand in ultra-chic boutiques all over the world. It is 90 percent controlled by Andrea Dini, the brother-in-law of Attilio Fontana, the president of the Lombardy region from the Lega party (whose wife holds the remaining ten percent of the shares).
This is the same Andrea Dini who, alongside his regional president brother-in-law, was investigated in 2020 on suspicion of bid-rigging in the direct procurement of over 80,000 medical gowns (at the height of the Covid emergency), awarded by the Lombardy regional purchasing agency Aria to the same Dama. That procurement was later converted into a charitable donation to the region only after the case was exposed by journalistic investigations. In 2022, the charges against both Dini and Fontana were dropped.
Returning to the investigation announced on Tuesday, the major new development compared to previous probes is that, this time, the magistrates have explicitly put in writing that the exploitation of workers was carried out knowingly by the top management of the high-fashion brands. The accusation – leveled against Andrea Dini and three Chinese citizens – is that they “adopted a business policy aimed at containing costs through the systematic use of exploited labor.” Furthermore, the investigation documents highlight that “it seems frankly difficult to rule out the malicious intent of the top executives” of the two companies, who periodically visited the sweatshop to inspect the manufacturing of the products, “generally on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.” They could not have possibly failed to see the conditions the workers were forced into.
For the exploited workers, the warehouse in the town of Garbagnate Milanese, just north of Milan, served as a workplace, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom all rolled into one. Everything was crammed into just a few square meters. From the first inspection carried out by the Financial Police in 2023 to the last one at the end of 2025, the only thing that changed was that, while two companies had previously been exploiting the workers, once the scam was uncovered, one of the two (now “compromised” by the investigation) was simply absorbed by the other. Otherwise, everything stayed exactly the same.
The workers' testimonies reveal that they were effectively enslaved by those exploiting their vulnerable status (many lacked residence permits) and were forced to work 14 hours a day, every single day of the year – including Sundays and holidays – for an hourly wage of €5, without even knowing the name of the company they were actually working for. Others recounted being paid on a per-piece basis, depending on the “quantity of the garments worked on.”
They were threatened with being fired and facing further abuse if they ever spoke out about their conditions. Many of them repeated to their interrogators – using the exact same words, as if they had been heavily indoctrinated – that they worked in conditions that were, all things considered, perfectly normal. However, the testimonies of other workers and a sign written in Chinese listing the work hours (from eight in the morning until ten at night) entirely contradicted them. Now, judicial administration has been ordered for the two companies. It was urgently requested by the magistrates because “the situation of exploiting their state of need is still ongoing” and “must be interrupted as soon as possible, given that it appears to have been going on for years.” This is exactly what we have already seen with other high-fashion brands. And, most likely, it is exactly what we will see with others to come.
Two judicial administrators have been appointed with the task of overseeing compliance with the law, regularizing the workers' status and dismantling the “toxic situations” involving two supplier firms owned by the exact same Chinese entrepreneur between 2020 and 2025. The subcontracts to the Chinese sweatshops reportedly guaranteed profit margins “ranging from 95 to 87 percent” on Paul&Shark-branded garments. For instance, the “reversible car coat” model costs €107 to produce and is sold for €1,945 – roughly 19 times as much.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/caporalato-commissariato-il-marchio-paulshark on 2026-03-18