Police have shut down an illegal sewing factory in the Moscow region where 15 minors aged 11 to 17 worked seven days a week without pay, the Interior Ministry said Monday.

The sweatshop was run by a Kyrgyz national who recruited the children from low-income families in Kyrgyzstan, promising their parents that the children would receive a monthly salary of 5,000 rubles ($170), three meals daily, good living conditions and weekends off, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement.

The children were transported to the sweatshop in the town of Noginsk, about 70 kilometers east of Moscow, by bus, car or train, where they were only fed bread and mayonnaise and lived in barracks.