Immediate answer
When a worker says they are being underpaid, controlled, or threatened with their visa, the most corrosive response is disbelief. This page exists so nobody has to argue from rumour: every matter named here is a decided court case or finalised regulator outcome, on the public record, with the citation to check.
Three rules for reading it honestly:
- Decided versus alleged. This page names only matters that ended in a judgment, penalty or court-enforceable undertaking. Matters still before the courts are described at the end without names, because allegations are not findings.
- Patterns, not nationalities. Many cases involve operators and workers from the same community — that is a fact about how recruitment and isolation work, not about any community’s character. Cross-national cases exist too.
- Sex work is not trafficking. The criminal cases below were prosecuted because of slavery, servitude and debt bondage — coercion and control — not because sex work was involved. In several, courts noted the women had come to Australia voluntarily.
Wage theft: the civil enforcement record
Hospitality dominates the Fair Work Ombudsman’s migrant-worker enforcement — restaurants, sushi chains, bakery-cafés, nail salons and convenience stores. Working holiday makers are heavily over-represented: the FWO told a 2020 parliamentary inquiry that WHMs, despite being around one per cent of the workforce, accounted for almost seven per cent of its active case load.
- FWO v Sushi Bay Pty Ltd (in liq) (No 3) [2024] FCA 869 — $15.3 million in penalties, the highest ever in an FWO action. The Sushi Bay group underpaid 163 workers, mostly Korean nationals on student, working holiday and 457 visas, $653,129 over four years, falsified records, and ran an unlawful cashback scheme on twenty 457 visa holders. Owner Yi Jeong “Rebecca” Shin was personally penalised $1.6 million; Justice Katzmann called the conduct “both calculated and audacious” — and it was repeat conduct, after 2019 penalties.
- FWO v Mr Viet (Adelaide, Federal Court, 2025) — about $802,000 in combined orders. Viet Quoc Mai was ordered to back-pay $407,546 to 36 workers — mostly Vietnamese international students under 25 — and penalised alongside his wife and manager. A “strike board” system forced workers to buy food and drinks for the bosses, and one worker was given $10,000 to feign back-payment and then made to return it.
- FWO v HSCC Pty Ltd (Hero Sushi, Federal Court, 2020) — $891,000 in penalties. Ninety-four workers, many Korean and Japanese nationals on student and working holiday visas, underpaid $700,833 on flat rates as low as $12 an hour, with false records produced eleven times. “This is a case about greed and the exploitation of the vulnerable” (Justice Flick).
- 85 Degrees / 85°C (three actions: 2015, 2022, 2024). Taiwanese backpackers underpaid at a Sydney café (2015 undertaking); eight Taiwanese students brought in under a sham “internship” and paid a flat monthly sum for 60–70-hour weeks ($475,200 in penalties, 2022); and FWO v 85 Degrees Coffee Australia [2024] FCA 576 — $1.44 million, the first use of the “responsible franchisor entity” provisions, for underpayments across franchisee outlets.
- Hanaichi (Brisbane, 2017) — $143,000 in penalties for underpaying two Taiwanese 417 holders recruited through Mandarin-language websites, with unlawful uniform “bond” deductions.
- China Bar (Melbourne, 2021) — $309,750 and Fu Kang (Gold Coast, 2021) — $225,500: Chinese visa-holder kitchen workers underpaid on rates that in one case worked out at $2.30 an hour, with falsified records in both.
- House of Polish (Adelaide, 2018) — $130,000 in penalties against a Vietnamese owner for underpaying two young Filipino nail technicians behind what the court called “an elaborate sham” — the standing reminder that exploitation also crosses community lines.
- The 7-Eleven scandal (2015–16) sits behind much of this enforcement era: a wage repayment program that had paid out about $151 million to more than 3,600 claimants by early 2018, a Senate report titled A National Disgrace, and the Protecting Vulnerable Workers amendments of 2017. Franchise audits at Caltex and Domino’s found widespread non-compliance in the same period.
What the wage cases keep repeating: flat rates well below the award, no payslips or falsified ones, cashback demands, unexplained deductions, and visa threats used to keep people quiet. Those are exactly the red flags on this site’s in-language checklists.
Slavery, servitude and debt bondage: the criminal record
A smaller, graver set of cases — prosecuted under Divisions 270–271 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code.
- The Queen v Tang [2008] HCA 39 — Australia’s first slavery convictions, upheld by the High Court. Five Thai women in a licensed Melbourne brothel each carried a “debt” of about $45,000, worked up to six days a week serving up to 900 customers over four to six months, and had their passports retained. The High Court’s point stands at the centre of this whole subject: the crime was the condition of slavery — the debt, the control, the unfreedom — not the industry.
- R v Sieders; R v Yotchomchin (NSW, 2006; appeals dismissed [2008] NSWCCA 187) — sexual servitude convictions over four Thai women working off $45,000 “debts” in Penrith-area brothels. Detected because a client helped a victim contact the authorities.
- R v McIvor and Tanuchit [2010] NSWDC 310 — NSW’s first slavery convictions: five Thai women kept in a locked basement room of a Fairfield brothel, “purchased” for $12,500–$15,000 and told they owed up to $45,000. Sentences of 11–12 years. Detected when a victim reached the Thai Embassy.
- R v Netthip [2010] NSWDC 159 — a sexual-servitude business placing eleven Thai women in brothels across several cities with debts around $53,000.
- DPP (Cth) v Huang & Chen (Brisbane, 2017) — the first non-sexual servitude prosecution under the broadened 2013 law: Taiwanese nationals forced to staff fraudulent call centres in Brisbane houses for around 15 hours a day, seven days a week, unpaid. Servitude can look like an office.
What the criminal cases keep repeating: a recruited “debt” that must be worked off, confiscated documents, controlled movement and housing, and isolation behind language and fear. Three of these cases ended because one person — a client, an embassy, a worker — made one contact. That is why this site exists in seven languages.
Context the record supports, carefully
Beyond the judgments, credible investigations document the same mechanics: the ABC’s 2015 Slaving Away program on farm and food-processing exploitation of working holiday makers, including demands for sexual favours in exchange for visa paperwork; a 2019 Flinders University report documenting Taiwanese women in the Riverland coerced into sexual favours to obtain picking hours (no prosecution resulted); and university research on Korean women in the entertainment industry that stresses agency as well as exploitation. These are research and journalism, attributed as such — context, not adjudication.
Case study: Robinvale, where workers are present but not counted
ABC News reported in 2026 that Robinvale, a Victorian agricultural town, was officially counted at about 3,740 people in the most recent census, while local estimates based on spending, water use and service demand suggested roughly 7,000–8,800 people may actually live there depending on the season. The people missing from the official count are not imaginary: they pick, pack, cook, worship, send money home, use clinics, need child care and live in the same housing market as everyone else.
The article is useful because it shows how exploitation risk is not only about one bad boss. When seasonal and migrant workers are invisible in data, the whole town is under-resourced: housing, health care, child care, emergency services and local government are planned for a smaller population than the one actually carrying the agricultural economy. The result is predictable pressure — overcrowded houses, informal rooming arrangements, fear of authorities, and workers who may avoid services because they worry about visas, housing conditions or government data.
Read it as a population-level case study, not as a claim that Robinvale is uniquely bad. The Australian Bureau of Statistics told the ABC that similar undercounts were likely in other regional communities. For this site, the lesson is simple: if workers are not counted, their risks are easier to ignore.
Matters before the courts
Several FWO and AFP matters involving migrant workers — including restaurant underpayment claims and a trafficking-recruitment investigation with Indonesian links — are currently before the courts. This page does not name parties in undecided matters: allegations are not findings, and the presumption of innocence applies. When judgments land, decided matters move onto this page with their citations.
What Australians can do
- Believe the pattern. Every checklist warning on this site — no payslips, cash only, tied housing, held passports, visa threats, “work off your debt” — appears in the decided record above.
- If someone discloses underpayment, start with the employers and advocates page and the Fair Work Ombudsman; back-payment happens, as these cases show.
- If the situation involves debt, documents, or control of movement, treat it as a possible slavery or trafficking matter and use the official help directory. One contact has ended entire operations.
This page is general information, not legal advice. Case figures are taken from final judgments and official regulator releases; verify citations on AustLII before formal use.