"Finland jails businessman for trafficking Thai berry workers", 8 June 2026

A Finnish court on June 8 handed a 2.5-year jail term to a local businessman for trafficking Thai workers to pick berries in the Nordic country.

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

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.

Owing 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 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”.

Kristo, Kalyakorn and the berry company were ordered to pay around €500,000 (S$743,240) in compensation to the victims for financial loss and mental suffering, and a further €400,000 to cover legal costs.

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