Four farmworkers burned alive in Calabria as investigators probe labour exploitation and mafia links

The attack

Four migrant farmworkers were killed on Monday morning when the minivan they were travelling in was set alight at a service station in Amendolara, in the province of Cosenza. The victims were identified as Pakistani national Waseem Khan, 29, and Afghan nationals Amin Fazal Khogjani, 28, Ullah Ismat Qiemi, 19, and Safi Iayjad, 27. A fifth man, 35-year-old Afghan Taj Mohammad, survived by forcing open the rear hatch and fleeing while engulfed in flames.

Prosecutors described a premeditated plan to kill all five occupants. Surveillance footage from the petrol station showed the victims desperately moving from the back seats toward the front, trying to smash the windows and windscreen. They could not open the door because one of the attackers had broken the handle before getting out.

The event was of unspeakable cruelty, absolutely inhuman.

In 34 years of service I have never personally witnessed an act of such cruelty. Because those four boys, the way they died, caused a real shock in us.

The suspects

Two 31-year-old Pakistani men, Safeer Ahmed and Ali Raza, were arrested within hours on charges of multiple homicide aggravated by premeditation, trivial motives and cruelty. The prosecutor described the speed of the operation as "almost an arrest in flagrante." Both men remained silent during questioning by the prosecutor and were due to appear before a preliminary investigations judge on Wednesday morning.

The minivan in which the victims were killed reportedly belonged to one of the two suspects. Investigators are trying to determine whether the detainees acted as labour intermediaries, or caporali, and if so on whose behalf, or whether they were themselves farmworkers who exploited a longer presence in Italy and access to a vehicle to charge others for transport.

The labour context

The four victims had been working in the strawberry harvest in the area of Scanzano Jonico, in the neighbouring region of Basilicata. The owner of the agricultural company where they were employed stated that all workers had regular seasonal contracts, medical checks and payment by bank transfer. He added that the company pays 48 euros for a six-and-a-half-hour day and that the May wages had not yet been paid because payment is made by the 10th of the following month.

You must not think that exploitation happens only through illegal, off-the-books work. There are situations where formally everything seems in order, but then it is not at all.

Prosecutors are now examining the broader working relationships between the victims, the suspects and the agricultural businesses, and whether everything was compliant with the law. The investigation is also focused on the phenomenon of caporalato, to establish whether the workers were directed to the farms by individuals who "managed" them or whether contacts were direct.

Organised crime and threats

Giovanni Mininni, secretary general of the Flai Cgil union, said the union has placed the survivor and another migrant under protection. He stated that a third caporale escaped and that the 'ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, is likely behind the attack.

The day before they had been threatened with a pistol. Pakistani caporali do not go around armed unless there is a mafia organisation behind them.

Mininni also linked the killings to a series of arson attacks on the cars of various caporali in recent months, which he said appear tied to an internal war among labour intermediaries and between ethnic groups to secure relationships with agricultural companies.

The scale of exploitation

An estimated 200,000 agricultural workers in Italy are irregular, according to the latest Istat estimate from 2023, with an irregularity rate reaching 30 percent. Many are migrants who accept daily pay of around 20 euros for 12 to 14 hours of work in the fields without any protections. In Calabria alone, the Cnr-Ismed Agromafie e Caporalato report estimates around 12,000 workers are employed in irregular conditions, mainly from India, Morocco and Mali.

In 2025 the territorial inspectorate of Cosenza carried out 282 checks in agriculture; 69.5 percent of companies were found to be irregular. In the first quarter of 2026, over 61 percent of inspected companies were irregular. A 2016 law against caporalato raised penalties for labour intermediaries and employers, but enforcement remains difficult due to the vast areas involved and the reluctance of exploited workers to report abuses.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the killings "a barbarity." The investigation continues into the motive and the possible involvement of organised crime in the labour racket.