The persons originating from Vietnam, one of underage, were accordingly taken into custody by the officials during the search of a restaurant in the Hardtberg district. A third person had been arrested during the search of an apartment on the Brüser Berg.

With the action, in which 28 customs officers were involved, the officials executed several search warrants in Düren, Düsseldorf and Bonn, according to their own information. Their objective concerned, according to customs, a restaurant in Düren, an accountancy office in Duesseldorf as well as a further restaurant and two private dwellings in Bonn. This was preceded by investigations against a restaurant owner who was suspected of having withheld and embezzled wages, evaded taxes and aided and abetted illegal residence.

The restaurant owner first came to attention, he said, when he failed to produce wage records and timesheets during an inspection in 2019. During a renewed inspection in the same year, workers were then encountered who were not registered for social security and were in part illegally in Germany, he said.

According to the officials' report, the workers from the restaurant, who have now been provisionally arrested, had first tried to flee and then refused to provide information about their identity. During the check, the customs officers had found that an arrest warrant had already been issued for the underage person. She had been transferred to a youth reception facility.

In one of the two private apartments of the accused restaurant owner, described by customs as "extremely unclean," investigators found four mattresses lying on the floor. From this, they conclude that the apartment was used as accommodation for the workers.

Original text: Dennis J. Sennekamp

Translation: Mareike Graepel