Around 90 foreigners applied for jobs at the company and paid hundreds or even thousands of euros in fees, but none were hired.Helsinki District Court found that the entrepreneur who collected money from the jobseekers had no intention of hiring them (file photo). Image: Silja Viitala / YleYle News10:29Helsinki District Court has sentenced the CEO of a cleaning company to one year and 10 months in prison for aggravated fraud and other offences.The company collected "entrance fees" from foreign jobseekers without any intention of actually hiring them, the court heard.The victims had paid the company hundreds or even thousands of euros in the hope of getting a job and a residence permit. Nearly 90 people applied for residence permits through the company.Demanding such fees is illegal in Finland. Most of the job seekers were from the Philippines.None were eventually employed by the company. The purpose of the recruitment procedure appears to have been only to collect fees, and not to employ any workers, the district court said in its ruling on Wednesday.According to the prosecutor, jobhunters paid the firm fees of between 500 and 3,000 euros.The court noted that the loss of these sums caused particularly significant damage to the victims.It found that the CEO collected more than 60,000 euros in criminal proceeds in 2022 and 2023.In addition to the CEO, two other people were convicted of aiding and abetting fraud. The charges against another defendant were dropped.The judgment is still subject to appeal.Last year, Yle reported that Helsinki police suspected two Filipino cleaning entrepreneurs of aggravated theft and organising illegal immigration, but it was not immediately clear whether Wednesday's ruling involved one of these firms.