Sweden’s security police (Sapo) have arrested a Swedish citizen in Stockholm in connection with spying on refugees arriving in Sweden from an unnamed country. Sapo had been watching the suspect for quite a while before finally arresting him last week, though the agency refused to divulge any further information due to confidentiality agreements.
The Local reports that ‘refugee espionage’ is a surprisingly widespread criminal activity in Sweden. Sapo confirms that numerous countries use major resources to track and gather information about dissidents who flee their countries and seek asylum in Sweden. Since the spying is considered a danger to national security, it is a very serious crime in Sweden.
However, it is difficult to try suspects for this type of crime since it is never officially reported by anyone and the cases are virtually impossible to investigate. Prosecutor Tomas Lindstrom told the TT news agency: “The crime is predicated on the involvement of a foreign power and mostly, though not always, the people in charge are very good at what they do. They take every possible precaution and I think I’d go as far as to say that they are considerably more careful than many people involved in more traditional serious crime.”
Sapo admittedly keeps busy tracking these refugee spies, though it all remains quite murky and covert. Sapo’s investigations in this particular case have led them to deport several intelligence agents who were cooperating with the suspect’s illegal operations.