Behind the unassuming front door of a semi-detached house on quiet Brentry Lane lurked a chamber of horrors dubbed the “Gates to Hell.” Here, in the heart of suburban England, an evil couple turned vulnerable lives into a living nightmare, starving their captives, raining down brutal beatings, and forcing them to toil endlessly – even with shattered bones – while pocketing a staggering £300,000 in blood money.

Maros Tancos, a bald-headed Slovakian thug with a menacing glare, and his Polish partner Joanna Gomulska, a hard-faced woman who feigned innocence, ran this modern-day slave empire for nearly a decade. They trafficked at least 29 desperate souls – mostly young men from Slovakia’s impoverished Roma traveller camps and orphanages – promising them a better life in Britain. Instead, they delivered hell on earth, seizing passports, phones, and bank cards, locking victims in squalor, and bleeding them dry for their gambling habits and flashy cars.

Now, in a chilling new National Crime Agency podcast – Underworld: Behind the Scenes of the NCA – set for release on November 12, lead investigator Mark Morrison lays bare the depravity. “The house was divided into the haves and the have-nots,” he reveals. “Two fridges: one full of food for them, one barren for the slaves.” Victims, so malnourished they “could barely eat a sandwich” upon rescue, slept on filthy mattresses topped with cardboard to hide the springs, crammed six or seven to a stifling attic.

One survivor, his voice cracking in court testimony, branded the house “the gate to hell.” “I went there to provide for my family,” he said. “But the life in Maros’ house changed me completely.” Another, a young woman who fled pregnant, wept: “We didn’t have time to sleep. Work, food, bed – then work again. My baby was born undernourished. Horrendous.”

bbc.com

Bristol car wash couple guilty of human trafficking

The nightmare began in the grim slums of eastern Slovakia, places like Moldava nad Bodvou – a traveller village where homes had dangling wires but no windows, black bin bags stapled in their place after families sold the glass for cash. Tancos, who once worked as a builder near local children’s homes, preyed on orphans turning 18, handing out government stipends and whispering dreams of UK riches. “Steady work, half your wages,” he’d say. Gomulska, mother to kids from a prior marriage, played the kindly aunt, reeling them in.

Upon arrival pre-Brexit – when EU freedom meant no visas needed – the trap snapped shut. Passports confiscated, phones smashed, bank accounts hijacked. Victims funneled into Tancos’ car wash on a dingy Bristol industrial estate, scrubbing vehicles 12-20 hours daily in caustic chemicals that blistered skin. Nights? Agency gigs: plucking chickens till dawn, packing milk, sorting parcels. Wages? Funneled straight to the couple via PINs only they knew. Tancos owed £923,835 in minimum wage alone – but stole nearly £300,000 more from accounts between 2010 and 2017, splurging on second-hand motors and casino thrills.

Abuse was relentless. Beatings for slow work, death threats to families back home. Chemical burns sent to hospital – then yanked out before questions. One man shattered his arm cycling; Tancos dragged him to the car wash next day, swollen limb dangling. “Work or else,” he snarled. Kidneys ruptured in accidents, bones broken from exhaustion – all patched crudely, slaves shoved back to labour.

Starvation gnawed deepest. Victims begged scraps from the empty “slave fridge,” too terrified to raid the couple’s stocked one. “They were emaciated,” Morrison recalls. “Like concentration camp survivors.” Permission needed for shop runs; locked in when masters left. Up to 10 crammed in: women in one filthy room, men in the attic’s oven-like heat, walls scrawled with despairing graffiti.

A pregnant slave’s tale chills: lured seeking better pay, she slaved double shifts. “I knew deep inside he was a fraudster,” she told BBC. Birth brought horror – her infant malnourished, tiny frame ravaged by maternal famine. She fled to Slovakia, returning penniless: “Two years without electricity or water. No clothes, nothing to eat.”

The house? Deceptive bliss outside – neat lawn, net curtains. Inside, a Berlin Wall: couple’s side gleamed with sofas, gadgets; victims’ reeked of sweat and despair. Bundles of 5p and 2p coins in socks – pitiful savings. “Like cattle to a farmer,” Judge Martin Picton thundered at sentencing. “You treated them as property, robbing confidence and self-respect.”

Cracks appeared in 2016. Avon and Somerset Police probed after whispers, but victims – fearing deportation lies – clammed up. Breakthrough: February 2017, Slovak cops tipped NCA after an escapee spilled. Surveillance locked on Brentry Lane. July raid: officers stormed, nabbing Tancos outside as five skeletal men cowered within. Gomulska quizzed in her plush lounge, feigning shock.

Specialist interviews unlocked truths. NCA flew to Slovakia, mapping 42 victims – 29 testified. Trial: three months, jury saw through Gomulska’s “I was helping” sob-story. June 2022, Bristol Crown Court: Tancos 16 years, Gomulska 9. “Ruthless,” prosecutors branded them. “Commodities – sell humans endlessly, unlike drugs.”

Bristol car wash couple guilty of human trafficking

Three years on, the podcast reignites fury. Modern slavery surges: 19,125 Home Office referrals in 2024, up 2,000 – real toll? 122,000. Charities slam immigration rules trapping victims silent. Unseen’s Rachel Collins-White: “Barriers stop survivors speaking.” Anti-Slavery: “Conflates trafficking with enforcement – a step back.”

Victims rebuild shattered lives. The pregnant escapee mothers alone in Slovakia’s slums. The broken-armed slave bears scars. “No life,” one laments. But bravery felled monsters. Morrison praises: “Like domestic abuse, it took time to see themselves as victims.”

Brentry Lane? Now silent, demons caged. Yet Gates to Hell remind: evil hides in plain sight. In Britain’s veins, slavery festers – but justice, once roused, slams shut the portal.

As lanterns flicker at Bristol vigils, survivors whisper: Never again.