Helsinki Court Sentences Cleaning Company Representatives for Exploiting Filipino Workers
The Helsinki District Court has sentenced two representatives of a small cleaning company to suspended prison terms for exploiting workers from the Philippines. The defendants were convicted of aggravated extortion, arranging illegal entry, and a registration offence, with the crimes occurring over a three-year period between 2022 and 2025.
The case involves Pieni aika siivouspalvelu, a Helsinki-based cleaning company that operates in the Greater Helsinki area and Uusimaa. According to the court, the company’s CEO and another representative charged so-called threshold payments—ranging from 4,000 to 5,000 euros per person—to secure employment contracts and residence permits for at least 26 individuals from the Philippines. The total amount extorted was nearly 130,000 euros (Yle).
The defendants falsely promised full-time employment, with contracts stipulating around 37 hours of work per week. However, most workers received only a few hours of work per day, if any. Two complainants were not offered any employment at all. The residence permits obtained by the workers were based on misleading information, as the actual working conditions did not match the contracts (Yle).
The court described the offences as particularly premeditated, citing the number of victims and the prolonged duration of the exploitation. The threshold payments were deemed disproportionately large given the income levels in the Philippines, and the court noted that such payments are illegal and not a requirement for employment or residence permits in Finland. Many of the workers lacked sufficient Finnish language skills or knowledge of local labour laws, further exacerbating their vulnerability (Yle).
The company’s CEO received a one-year and eight-month suspended prison sentence, while the other representative was sentenced to one year and six months. Both were also given four-year business bans. In addition to repaying the threshold payments to the complainants, they were ordered to forfeit the criminal proceeds to the state (Helsingin Sanomat).
According to financial statements, Pieni aika siivouspalvelu had been profitable, with annual profits ranging between 26,000 and 40,000 euros in recent years (Helsingin Sanomat). The verdict is not yet legally binding.
