Teena Abraham and her husband Tobin Francis came to Finland from India with the dream of building a new life in the "world's happiest country".

However, the nearly year-long experience of life in Finland became a nightmare, and the couple recently moved back to India — significantly poorer than when they left.

"We sold our house and my family's property to come to Finland. Practically everything we owned," Teena Abraham told Yle's investigative journalism unit MOT from the couple's one-room apartment in the city of Kochi.

They are two of about one thousand Indian citizens who moved to Finland in 2025. Abraham's goal was to obtain a nursing qualification at Arcada, a Helsinki-based university of applied sciences, and the couple planned to settle down in Finland permanently.

Third-party agents had promised Abraham a guaranteed income to pay for the expensive education, such as via paid internships and stipends.

However, she told MOT, all the promises made to her were broken.

MOT has previously revealed that unscrupulous third party agents are spreading false and misleading information to prospective fee-paying students about life in Finland.

In addition, an Indian social media influencer living in Finland, Saaima Aziz, recently told Yle News' All Points North podcast that she has been offered "thousands of euros" by agents to help them spin a false narrative about life in Finland for foreign students.

"Finland, the happiest country in the world"

Teena Abraham's journey to Finland began as it has done for many of her compatriots. In 2024, advertisements offering the opportunity to study in the "world's happiest country" caught her eye.

The adverts were being pushed by an education agency called Mangalam, which recruited students for Arcada University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki. Arcada's 'TopUp' nursing programme is designed for nurses who have a degree but no qualification to work in the EU.

Mangalam promised students well-paid internships in Finland, as well as monthly stipends worth over 2,000 euros. The promise of guaranteed income was a crucial aspect for Abraham. The tuition fees for Arcada's nursing programme costs a total of 10,000–12,000 euros for those coming from outside the EU.

Mangalam worked with an agency firm called In4growth, which was Arcada's official partner. Abraham contacted Arcada, and the institute recommended its education agent's services.

"If you are motivated to learn a new language and want to move to Finland to work, I can warmly recommend In4growth," an Arcada employee in a management position wrote to Abraham in an email seen by MOT.

Abraham dipped into her savings and paid the first semester fee of 5,000 euros to Arcada as well as about 3,000 euros in commission to the education agent. She arrived in Finland with her husband in the spring of 2025 as part of a small group of students.

In Finland, the reality of the situation quickly became clear. The paid internships and the stipends they had been promised did not exist. In addition, the students had arrived at a time when Finland was grappling with an unemployment crisis.

Abraham's husband Tobin Francis tried to support the couple by taking on low-income jobs, but their savings rapidly dwindled. The couple survived for just under a year in Finland but then had no other option but to return to India.

"We will have to work for at least 10 or even 20 years to earn back the money we lost. However, I have been away from India, so getting a job is now even more difficult," Abraham told MOT.

Arcada aware of education agents' lies — cooperation continued anyway

The unscrupulous behaviour of education agents has been well-known and widely discussed in Finland since MOT's documentary about their activities aired on Yle TV1 in December.

However, what is noteworthy in Arcada's case is that the institution appears to have been long aware that its partners were misleading students.

"Information was corrected for the first time in June 2023," Arcada's rector Mona Forsskåhl told MOT.

At that time, students were recruited to Arcada by the Finnish company Kayaworld, which worked with the Indian education agent Silverpeak. Arcada ended its cooperation with Kayaworld and Silverpeak in 2024, when In4growth became the new partner.

According to MOT's investigation, In4growth was founded by education agents who had broken away from Silverpeak, and the spreading of false information continued.

Mangalam's deceits were known to Arcada very soon after the cooperation began, Forsskåhl admitted, but it took Arcada until December 2025 to officially sever ties with the agency.

MOT asked Forsskåhl why the cooperation wasn't ended immediately when the spreading of false information came to light.

"That's a good question. We asked them to correct the false information and assumed this would happen," Forsskåhl replied, adding "we were naive".

MOT further uncovered evidence that Arcada's education agents have, in addition to lying, charged students thousands of euros in superfluous commission fees. Receipts seen by MOT revealed that In4growth has charged students a "registration fee", for example, even though this service should be free for students.

Did Arcada also spread misleading information?

MOT also found that the spreading of false information was not just confined to the education agents, but was also done by Arcada.

"An Arcada employee in a leading position told us that once the required language level is achieved, it would be possible for us to get paid internships," Teena Abraham recalled.

MOT has seen photographic evidence from a video chat in which an Arcada employee in a management position gave a lecture to students about studying at Arcada.

In the accompanying presentation, which is visible in the video chat, a slide reading "internship positions that are paid" is mentioned as being available once the student reaches a certain language level.

However, there were no paid internships.

According to Arcada, an incorrect version of the presentation was initially made, but the errors were subsequently corrected. The institution added that it is currently investigating why false information nevertheless appears to have ended up in the presentation.

"If our representative has generally given an overly positive picture of the opportunities to find paid work at information sessions, they have not acted in accordance with the university's guidelines," Arcada's communications department said.

Arcada refuses to refund tuition fees

Arcada also claimed that the majority of Indian nurses trained by the university of applied sciences have done well, but finding employment has been difficult for some.

However, contrary to these claims, MOT found that some of the students have returned to India heavily in debt.

Arcada's rector Mona Forsskåhl said she is very sorry about the students' situation.

"I can only apologize," Forsskåhl added.

Teena Abraham told MOT that she wanted to tell her story publicly so that Finnish institutions understand how serious the consequences of the lies told by agents can be on people's lives.

However, Forsskåhl revealed that Arcada cannot refund tuition fees to students, even if they have been deceived by the agents' lies.

"As a university, we are not allowed to exempt them from payment. It's an obligation that comes from the law," she said.

Abraham has since filed a criminal complaint with the Indian police about the actions of the Indian agents. However, she noted that it is unlikely the police will investigate the case as the students did not make a written contract with the agent in which the empty promises had been mentioned.

MOT also discovered that a criminal complaint has also been filed with the Finnish police, although no actual criminal investigation has been initiated so far — meaning no one is suspected of a crime.

Despite the revelations, the agents continue to spread false information. Arcada's former education agents are still advertising stipends to be paid to nursing students on their websites.

"We have asked them to remove these, but we can no longer reach them," Forsskåhl said.

MOT tried to reach representatives of the agency offices — including from Mangalam, In4growth and Silverpeak — but no responses to the interview requests were received.

The expectations students have before coming to Finland versus the reality they face when they move was the topic on a recent episode of All Points North on Video. You can watch the full episode from the video below or on our YouTube channel.