Prosecutors in Italy have placed the Italian branch of U.S. construction firm Caddell Construction under formal investigation amid allegations that workers at the U.S. consulate building in Milan were exploited, judicial documents show. The Carabinieri police have imposed judicial control on the Italian unit, according to a 103-page decree that sets out the accusations.
The decree alleges the firm recruited many of its workforce in India through an intermediary based in New Delhi and then employed them on "exhausting shifts, underpaid, without safety protections and under the constant threat of dismissal" at the Milan consulate project. The judicial control is part of a wider enforcement effort by Italian authorities targeting labour exploitation across multiple sectors over the past three years.
The decree reports that in 2025 Caddell’s Italian unit employed between 311 and 394 people, 316 of whom were from India. By February 2026 the workforce had fallen to 261. The company specialises in large-scale projects including contracts for U.S. embassies and military facilities; its website states a portfolio of projects worth more than $24 billion across the United States and in 38 countries.
Work on the new U.S. consulate in Milan began in 2022. The contract was worth almost $210 million and the initial timetable targeted completion in 2025; that date was subsequently moved to 2028. The judicial control imposed by the Carabinieri does not stop normal operations or construction activity on the site. Instead it appoints a court administrator charged with ensuring compliance with labour legislation and regularising the current workforce. The decree must be validated by a judge in the coming weeks.
The judicial document includes statements from 35 Indian workers. Each said they had been recruited by an employment agency in New Delhi to work for Caddell in Italy as labourers. According to their accounts, every one of them paid 500,000 Indian rupees to obtain a 36-month contract and travel to Italy.
"I had to sell my wife’s gold and ask friends and relatives for a loan, which I will then have to repay," said one worker identified as Gopal Nayak in his statement.
In India, the initial employment contracts the workers signed specified hourly pay between €1.31 and €1.91, with food and accommodation to be covered by the company. These contracts were written in English; all of the workers said they did not know English, and two said they could not read at all.
After arriving in Italy, the workers said they signed a second contract with Caddell’s Italian unit. The decree characterises that contract as regularising the legal procedures required for lawful work-related entry into Italy and as being fully compliant with Italian labour law, but says the documents were not handed over to the workers themselves.
Investigators and witness testimonies recorded by the Carabinieri indicate the labourers worked 12 hours a day, six days a week - markedly above Italy’s legal limit of 40 hours per week. Although the men were formally paid between 900 and 900 per month, mandatory deductions for housing and food that they said had not been disclosed to them cut roughly 800 from their monthly take-home pay.
"Every month I sent 300 to India to support my three children, my wife and my brother... I was left with just a bit of money to buy dinner," said Manoj Kumar, one of the workers interviewed by investigators.
The decree also records accounts of threats and mistreatment by team leaders and states that workers were not allowed to take sick leave. Caddell Construction, its Italian unit and the U.S. embassy in Rome did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to the judicial documents.
The case now moves to the next stage as the decree awaits validation by a judge and the court-appointed administrator begins work to verify compliance with labour laws and to regularise employment conditions for the affected workers. The judicial control leaves active construction and company operations in place while imposing oversight aimed at remedying any unlawful employment practices identified in the investigation.
($1 = 95.6800 Indian rupees) ($1 = 0.8585 euros)