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Up to 60,000 Swedish passports replaced for being lost or stolen in 2013
Friday, 12 July 2013
Swedish people have been very careless with their passports in the past
years leading to increased replacement of passports. In 2013, up till
60000 Swedish people applied for a new passport as a result of the old
one being stolen or lost.
Within a very short time some people have replaced their
passports up till 20 times - passport believed to end up in the hands
of human smugglers or other forms of criminals such as those who can
clone them and use in another EU country.
The Swedish police have now started investigating what is being quietly described as a scandal in the Swedish passport arena.
In recent years, the number of Swedish passport that had been
reported stolen or lost has risen sharply. From approximately 45 700 in
2008 to this year's forecast of over 60 000.
Swedish boarder police official, Bengt Hellgren at the airport told
Swedish television that the passports could be very useful for people
smuggling. "We have several cases a week. From across Europe, police
have received reports that which revealed that Swedish passports have
been involved in human smuggling. In fact, Swedish passports are among
the most common among smugglers. The explanation is that the Swedish
legislation around lost passports is among the most liberal in Europe."
"All Swedish citizens have a right to have a passport and to always
get it renewed or a new one if the old one is lost, - no matter how
many times they loose it," says Soren Clerton, head of the central
border control at the National Police, and continues:
"But it is clear that it is not usually careless citizens who report that they have lost their passport 20 times.
He adds that the police have several examples of people who in a short time have taken out many passports - up to 20 items.
by Scancomark.com Team