By Leila Nezirevic
LONDON (AA) - A former administrator at the Swedish Migration Agency is suspected of having taken payments for granting residence and work permits to applicants and their family members on incorrect grounds, local media reported Tuesday.
The administrator is believed to have handled around a thousand cases. The migration agency has reviewed eight so far, and in seven of the cases, he was considered to have wrongly granted residence and work permits.
“There is a suspicion that the person has received payment to carry out these permits,” Carl Bexelius, head of legal affairs at the agency, was quoted as saying by local broadcaster SVT Nyheter.
During the investigation, the immigration office received an anonymous message that the administrator in question had been paid as much as several hundred thousand Swedish Krona to grant a residence and work permit.
He was reported to internal investigations by a unit manager in March last year, but a full investigation is not due to start until the summer, according to the broadcaster.
Last August, three identical applications were granted permits naming the same company as an employer with 13 family members being included in addition to the three main applicants, and according to the Swedish Migration Agency's review, there are several indications that this is likely to be sham employment.
In another case, the suspect granted permission to one person and five family members in February last year, but after examination, the migration agency said "the employer is notorious for work permits for bogus employment" and that the application should have been rejected immediately.
Those conducting the internal investigations have not been able to confront the man with the allegations because he resigned at his own request last fall, according to SVT Nyheter.
The immigration office is now looking into whether the permits should be revoked, said Bexelius.
The suspect has stated to the authorities that he has made decisions in nearly 1,000 cases and that he may have made some mistakes due to stress and pressure from management but he denies that it was intentional or that he was paid for it, SVT Nyheter reported.
Last week, the case was taken up by the Swedish Migration Agency's personnel responsibility committee, which decided to report the man on suspicion of misconduct, bribery and also data breach because he allegedly hacked into the agency's computer system.
“These are serious matters that the police and prosecutors should investigate more closely,” said Bexelius.
- Major flaws
The Swedish National Audit Office said in a review last year that the department responsible for revoking residence permits has major flaws as thousands of residence permits that should have been revoked were not dealt with.
When a person leaves Sweden for an extended period, the migration agency must revoke their permit. But despite having moved from Sweden, people have received grants totaling several hundred million Swedish krona, according to the review.
In 2020, 9,000 people still had permanent residence permits despite having moved out of the country, with nearly half of the cases registered to have moved out 10 years prior, said the National Audit Office.
In addition, almost every fourth person who was in Sweden to study lacked registration information for studies and every 10th person with a work permit had no registered earnings, according to SVT Nyheter.
Despite this, the Swedish Migration Agency had not recalled any of these cases either, said the broadcaster.
The National Audit Office said the government and the Swedish Migration Agency are responsible for the deficiencies.
"The shortcomings are due, among other things, to the fact that the government and the Swedish Migration Agency have not prioritized this sufficiently. This is not in line with the authority's statutory mandate," said Auditor General Helena Lindberg in a press release.
Sweden wrongly paid out around 430 million Swedish krona ($40.6 million) between 2013-2020 in social benefits, child support and parental allowance to people who left Sweden years ago, said SVT Nyheter.