WA men on trial over Estonian extortion

Two Estonian men came to Perth to work as welders, but instead had their passports seized, were forced to hand over a large portion of their wages and were threatened, a court has heard.

Andres Tamleht is on trial in the West Australian District Court accused of facilitating the entry of two Estonian men - Indrek Veevo and Alari Leidsalu - to Australia in September 2011 and deceiving them about the fact that it would involve debt bondage.

He is also accused of improper possession of their passports in March 2012.

Allar Ahtmann and Marko Stolts are also on trial, accused of improper possession of the pair's passports in September 2012.

The three accused men, who are also Estonian, are also charged with intending to extort $25,000 from each alleged victim in March 2012 and threatening them with injury if the demand was not complied with.

In his opening address on Thursday, prosecutor Anthony Eyers said Tamleht arranged for the alleged victims to work at Bossong Engineering as welders.

What Tamleht did not explain was that they were employed on a trial basis and he would force them to sign paperwork so that a large portion of their income was given to his company, Mr Eyers said.

The prosecutor admitted the pair had exaggerated their competency in welding and had misrepresented their qualifications.

"So keen were they to be recruited, so keen were they to come to Western Australia," he said.

When it became clear they would not gain full employment, Tamleht was still determined to get money out of them, Mr Eyers said.

Tamleht said they could hand over their passports or be taken out by Ahtmann and Stolts - the "muscle" men with kickboxing experience - to do "a little training", the court heard.

The men never got their passports back from the trio, but police found them when they executed a search warrant about six months later.

Mr Eyers said it was "arrant nonsense" that the pair each owed $25,000 to Tamleht, who he said wanted to turn the men into "cash cows".

Mr Veevo and Mr Leidsalu soon fled to Victoria, and contacted police and the Estonian consul.

Tamleht's lawyer Philip Urquhart claimed the alleged victims had been "dishonest and deceitful", and had remained in Australia more than two years after the incident.

Mr Urquhart said Tamleht was not a "bully boy", but an enterprising young man who had grasped an opportunity that the Australian economy offered after the global financial crisis.

Tamleht's mistake was trusting the two men he was trying to help through his employment agency, Mr Urquhart said.

"(It was) a mistake even though he asked them to produce documentation that would verify the qualifications they said they had," he said.

Mr Urquhart said the pair were "self-confessed fraudsters" so it was ironic that his client was accused of deceiving them.

He also denied Tamleht had pressured or threatened the men, and said they were given time to consider the conditions of the agreement before signing.

The trial continues.