Finland jails businessman for trafficking Thai berry workers

HELSINKI, Finland: A Finnish court on Monday (Jun 8) handed a two-and-a-half-year jail term to a local businessman for human trafficking Thai workers to pick berries in the Nordic country.

Finnish authorities have cracked down in recent years after cases of exploitation of seasonal migrant workers in the nation's berry industry came to light, and have accused leading companies in the sector of having formed a cartel to depress wages.

The Lapland District Court convicted the former CEO of berry company Polarica, Jukka Kristo, on 78 counts of human trafficking.

His Thai business associate Kalyakorn Phongphit was also found guilty of the same offences, but she was only sentenced to nine months in prison as she had already been handed a three-year sentence last year in a case concerning another berry firm.

The case is Finland's largest ever human trafficking case, according to Finnish public broadcaster Yle.

The duo recruited Thai workers to pick wild berries in Finland but the court found that they misled them about earning opportunities and picking conditions.

Due to high travel and daily living costs, the workers were in debt to the company when they arrived in Finland in 2022 and "ended up with hardly any income" despite working long days without any days off, the court ruling stated.

Some of the accommodation provided to the victims "was of such poor quality, or the premises so cramped, that the fees charged for lodging were unreasonable in relation to the standard of the accommodation", the court concluded.

The seasonal workers - most of whom had a primary school-level education and only spoke Thai - had "no other genuine alternative than to continue picking berries to pay off the debt and other expenses under the conditions imposed by the defendants".

The court therefore found "that the picking work had become forced labour".

The court banned the former CEO from engaging in business activities for five years and he was also ordered to forfeit his military rank.

Kristo, Phongphit and the berry company were ordered to pay around 500,000 euros (US$576,000) in compensation to the victims for financial loss and mental suffering, and a further 400,000 euros to cover legal costs.

The defendants, who denied the charges, plan to appeal the verdict, according to Yle.

The prosecutor will also appeal the verdict to seek a harsher sentence.

With the long polar days, Finland's forests are full of wild lingonberries, blueberries and cloudberries, with local firms engaging thousands of mostly migrant seasonal workers to pick them.

In late May, the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority announced it had uncovered a "cartel" consisting of several berry picking companies - including Polarica - which had collaborated unlawfully between 2013 and 2023 to pay pickers lower prices.