Two human trafficking cases—one resulting in a conviction by a Finnish court in September last year and another in May—led to prison sentences of more than five years for a Finnish company executive and Thai broker Kanyakorn “Durian” Pongphit. As a result, Finnish authorities have tightened measures for importing workers from Thailand to pick wild berries for the season beginning in mid-July.
These stricter procedures have caused the Finnish embassy in Bangkok to reject visa applications from about 1,400 of over 3,200 Thai workers, leaving most of the wild-berry pickers from Isaan unemployed.
Pongsathon Tanjaroen, a reporter for The Isaan Record, obtained information that previously, several Thai brokers and private companies paid bribes to government agencies to speed up document processing for sending workers to pick wild berries, with bribe amounts totaling tens of millions of baht.
Wild berry pickers are Seasonal workers
On July 7, 2026, the Iltalehti reported that Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs announced it had rejected more than 1,400 visa applications from berry-picking workers from Thailand—constituting the majority of applications—out of roughly 2,200 submitted.
According to the 2025 annual inspectionreport on wild berry picking by the licensing and supervisory authority, which was used when considering seasonal work visa applications alongside information from other government agencies, reviewers found indicators of risk for labor exploitation as well as shortcomings in employers’ legal compliance.
Wild berry picking was brought under the rules for seasonal work by an amendment to the Seasonal Workers Act, which took effect in February 2025. The change aims to raise the status of berry pickers and prevent labor exploitation.
Under the new law, foreign berry pickers entering Finland are to be employed under contracts and must apply for a seasonal work visa or a residence permit for seasonal work. The amendment places wild-berry pickers within the scope of labor law, giving them labor protections and subjecting them to oversight by relevant state authorities.
Katja Luopajärvi, head of the Visa Unit at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, said in a statement that the main reason for the refusals is that diplomatic missions assessing the applications were not confident that employers could fulfill their duties as employers.
“Visa issuance must also take into account concerns about serious offenses and prosecutions that have occurred in the wild berry industry in recent times,” the Visa Unit director said.
Visa decisions are an exercise of state power under the law. Katja added that under the ministry’s rules and those of Finnish embassies abroad, they have a duty to prevent labor exploitation and human trafficking.
She further noted that risks of labor exploitation are not always evident to officials during visa assessment. Therefore, preventing exploitation requires cooperation from public agencies throughout the harvest season, with employer companies bearing direct responsibility, especially for complying with employment conditions for foreign wild berry pickers, protecting their rights, and providing appropriate working conditions and accommodation as required by law.
On June 24, more than 30 representatives of Thai wild berry workers submitted a letter to the Finnish Ambassador in Bangkok urging expedited visa processing in time for travel scheduled for mid-July.
They said wild berries only ripen between July and September, and delayed visa issuance would prevent more than 3,200 workers from traveling for work as planned.
These delayed visa approvals follow a Finnish court’s human trafficking verdict last September, which involved Thai brokers and a former private company executive.
Berry pickers face unemployment
Aoi Boonso, one of the Thai wild-berry pickers in Finland from Chaiyaphum province, who submitted a letter to the Finnish embassy requesting visa approval, said the embassy informed the companies of the visa refusals. As far as she knows, it was not only her employer affected—seven companies in total were impacted.
“I understand the company owners will appeal the embassy’s decision, but it will take four weeks to get the result. If the appeal fails and we cannot go to Finland, we will have to find other work,” said the berry picker, who has spent more than 20 years picking berries in Sweden and Finland.
Thai brokers needed to pay bribes
Earlier this year The Isaan Record reported corruption in Finland’s wild-berry industry, citing evidence from case files of Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI) that have been forwarded to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).
DSI documents state that two politicians and five senior officials accepted cash bribes placed in boxes from a broker for a Finnish food-processing company, and include Line chat logs showing payments to a former labor ministerbribes totaling over 36 million baht to facilitate sending Thai workers to Finland and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This information matches Finnish media reporting during trafficking trials, which said Thai brokers secretly collected 2,000 baht from each worker as a fee for exit documents from the Ministry of Labor, and that employers from several Thai companies paid money to Thai government agencies.
The Isaan Record confirmed with one coordinator involved in sending Thai workers to pick berries in Finland that during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2022 there were delays in issuing documents for workers to travel to Finland and Sweden, forcing brokers to pay the Ministry of Labor to expedite paperwork so workers could travel in time for the berry season.
“Every company had to pay the fee, collected from workers at 2,000 baht each, to make the Ministry of Labor issue urgent documents. The payment was made through intermediaries to get documents in time for the harvest season. After payment, companies could send workers to pick wild berries, then recover the cost from the workers,” the Thai broker said.
One coordinator said a main reason brokers had to pay was timing: obtaining employment contract documents that required multiple agency stamps was delayed. If government agencies did not issue documents before booked travel dates, companies would have to bear expensive flight-change fees up to 10,000 baht per ticket or sometimes be unable to change tickets at all.
