Published 25 October 2024 at 11.35
Domestic. The police are rejecting more and more citizens from EEA countries who are suspected of intending to commit crimes in Sweden. So far this year, these people have simultaneously been banned from returning to Sweden for a total of at least 550 years.
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During the year, 164 people have been rejected by the police with the support of regulations in The Aliens Act, which makes it illegal to stay in Sweden if you pose a threat to public order and security.
This can be compared to 39 people in 2023.
– These are people who come to Sweden with a single purpose: to systematically commit crimes, says Mats Berggren, head of the border police unit at the national operational department, Noa.
If a person from an EEA country cannot explain what the purpose of the entry or stay in Sweden is, the person can be rejected if the investigation also shows that the person has been convicted abroad for extensive or serious crime or appears in intelligence systems.
– This gives us the opportunity to intervene even before the person has time to commit new crimes in Sweden, says Mats Berggren on the police's website.
In the cases where the Police Authority's decision on rejection has been appealed, the courts have not taken a different view: The Aliens Act's formulation of a “real, actual and sufficiently serious threat to a fundamental societal interest” has been deemed fulfilled.
Among those rejected are for example A 40-year-old man who has been convicted of crimes in Sweden and abroad, including aggravated theft and sexual crimes.
Others are a 39-year-old man, a 29-year-old man and a 27-year-old man, respectively, who are judged to belong to an international criminal network with links to a foreign clan controlled by foreign mafias. All have been convicted and/or suspected of serious crime of assault. The network is based in a Swedish region and has a significant social impact across the country.
Common to all of them has been that they find it difficult to specify the purpose of the stay, which is who their employer is or where the client is and where the workplace is located.
– We have seen criminal networks suspend their activities because we rejected a number of people connected to them, because it was understood that we are on their trail. The criminal networks are very sensitive to disruption, and through this working method we can save society from a large number of impending crimes, says Mats Berggren.
In order to, among other things, increase the ability to identify and remove people who come to Sweden with the intention of committing crimes Noa established a border police unit on 1 September. The purpose is also to improve cooperation with other countries in the work to prevent Swedish citizens from committing crimes from abroad.
– From an international perspective, we must work more offensively, both against criminals from Sweden who establish themselves in other countries countries, but also against criminals from other countries who commit crimes here, says Johan Olsson, manager at Noa.
The cooperation with Europol is also crucial here.
– Many Swedish criminals to establish themselves in our Nordic neighboring countries and we work increasingly jointly with authorities in the Nordic countries, we have, among other things, a close collaboration where we share intelligence. These countries use the same regulations on rejection, deportation and re-entry bans, says Johan Olsson.