Police arrest six in deaths of four Brazil Labor Ministry workers

BRASILIA, Brazil – Police arrested six suspects in the shooting deaths of four Labor Ministry employees but said Tuesday that they still don’t know who ordered the killings.

Three inspectors and their driver were shot Jan. 28 in their vehicle near Unai. They were investigating living conditions for workers at area ranches.

Unai’s economy is heavily dependent on cultivation of black beans, and some 30,000 migrant workers are recruited every year for the harvest.

Rights groups charge that many of the workers end up laboring under various forms of coercion such as debt slavery, where employers provide jobs but force workers to pay exorbitant prices for basic goods, thus keeping them indebted.