Stockholm--A Swedish court sentenced a former migration official to three years in prison for issuing fake work permits and bogus Bulgarian passports.
The fake papers were used by asylum seekers facing deportation to obtain residency permits.
Malmo district court said that seven refugees facing expulsion from Sweden and Denmark had paid the former official from the national Migration Agency up to 90,000 kronor ($10,800, 9,700 euros) for the documents in 2008.
The nationalities of the asylum seekers were not revealed but the court said none of them were from Bulgaria.
Swedish police were alerted by the poor quality of the documents.
In its ruling the court said the crime committed by the 53-year-old former civil servant was all the more serious because he had "seriously abused his position", and that a passport was "a document which should specially protected".
The man, who pleaded innocent, was fined 450,000 kronor -- the amount he was believed to have made from the racket.
No charges were laid against the asylum seekers as the date of the crime had passed the statute of limitations.
Sweden has one of Europe's most generous asylum policies and accepted 51 percent of all applicants in the first four months of 2015.
AFP
