Police suspected two Filipino cleaning entrepreneurs of charging excessive fees for employment contracts and entry into Finland, said police in a press release on Monday.
Human trafficking investigative team of Helsinki police investigated into the cases for the suspected aggravated usury and facilitation of illegal entry into Finland.
A cleaning entrepreneur from the Philippines is suspected of requiring cleaners coming from the Philippines to Finland to pay excessive and unjustified fees for employment contracts and immigration arrangements.
Such fees are considered entry fees and some people have also been charged such a fee even though the company did not offer work or employment. The cleaners coming to Finland were charged entry fees of around €4,000–€5,000 from 2021 to 2024.
The case is being passed to the prosecutor for the consideration of charges.
In addition, some of the cleaners were forced to sign a zero-hours employment contract upon arriving in Finland.
They were not offered the number of working hours or level of earnings guaranteed by the employer when they applied for a residence permit, which is based on the said hours and earnings.
The company continued to recruit cleaners, although it had no intention or actual opportunity to offer work at a later stage to the people who had received residence permits.
Consequently, the company is suspected of facilitating illegal entry into Finland. People have obtained Finnish residence permits based on untrue or misleading information.
About 20 people who received a residence permit via the cleaning company never did any work for the company. Police have been in contact with around 30 people who paid entry fees or other charges. One person has been imprisoned and another has been arrested in connection with the case.
In another case, a cleaning contractor recruited a significant number of cleaners from the Philippines and contributed to their residence permit applications by acting as their employer.
More than 50 people were granted Finnish residence permits through the company. Almost 40 of them never did any work for the company and were never offered work by the company. The offences took place in 2021 and 2022. The activities are under investigation on suspicion of facilitating illegal entry into Finland.
Both companies are based in the Helsinki metropolitan area.
“Helsinki Police Department's national human trafficking investigative team has regularly investigated cases of abuse related to the recruitment and immigration of foreign workers. It is common for people coming to work in Finland to be charged advance fees,” said Senior Detective Superintendent Sami Isoniemi, who is heading the investigation.
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
