He used “violence” to retain the workers he had recruited in other countries with false promises.
Spain has extradited to Finland a 38-year-old Estonian citizen who had an international arrest warrant for aggravated human trafficking and for participation in a criminal organization. The detainee, identified with the acronym MP, was handed over last Wednesday, February 1, to the authorities of the Scandinavian country, as EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA has been able to confirm through judicial sources.
According to the Euro arrest warrant, between January 1, 2021 and August 17, 2022 MP and his accomplices committed a “serious crime of human trafficking” in Helsinki, which is also typified in the Spanish penal code. They did it, details the accusation, “taking advantage of the dependency situation and the helpless condition of people” who were “tricked” into going to Finland.
“Those investigated, harassing and misleading, have imposed their authority on people and have subjected them to the forced labor and even subhuman conditions“, explains the Finnish prosecution, which specifies that to reach these “objectives” they used “violence and harassment” with “treachery”.
The victims were basically people who, deceived with false promises of good job opportunities, came to Finland from countries like Latvia, as explained by the judicial documentation to which this newspaper has had access. Once there, “the workers discovered that the working conditions did not agree with what was agreed.”
“Fear of violence”
One of the promises that were made to them, the accusation gives as an example, it was a paid accommodation that, ultimately, they had to end up paying forand that some of them did not even get to collect all that was owed to them for their work.
“They had to make do with their situation due to the bad economic situation [que vivían]to violence or to fear of the threat of violence. Failure to pay wages has caused economic problems, so they have to continue working in the hope of possible future wages,” the Euroarrest warrant explains. “Violence or intimidation has been directed at workers who demand wages or who They are about to quit their job. The possibility of the victims to act freely has been limited by economic problems and by the dependence on the salary paid by the employer”.
In addition to the detainee, security companies were involved in the plot. Job intermediation like Way2Work and Probill Oy; from the construction sector, such as Tesproff Oy; and cleaning services, such as Nop-Group Oy.
In a car from last January 20, the National audience dismissed the petition of the detainee’s lawyer that he not be extradited to Finland, since he considered that the narrative of the facts was “detailed enough” to approve the request of the Scandinavian country. In addition, the crime of trafficking in human beings of which he is accused has a place and is classifiable within the spanish penal code.