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POLICE

Sweden to ban unregistered pre-paid mobile phones

Sweden is to ban anonymous mobile phone ‘cash cards’ from August 1st in a move police say will help to fight organised crime.

Sweden to ban unregistered pre-paid mobile phones
Photo by John Tuesday on Unsplash

Pre-paid SIM cards, known in Swedish as kontantkort or cash cards will soon require registration with information including the owner’s name and personal identity number (personnummer), broadcaster SVT reports.

The new rules could present difficulties for people without a personnummer, such as foreign nationals who have recently moved to Sweden, since a personal identity number is needed to set up a phone contract.

Sweden is changing its laws around pre-paid SIM cards because the anonymous nature of unregistered phones makes the work of law enforcement agencies more difficult, SVT writes.

“[The new rules] make it more difficult for criminals and easier for the police and other law enforcement agencies,” Fredrik Joelsson, of the police fraud unit in Västerås and operational analyst for the police in Region Mitt, told SVT.

Suspicious phone numbers in criminal investigations are almost always without a registered owner, according to Joelsson.

But the analyst said he believes that professional criminals will find ways to get around the new rules by using methods including fake BankIDs and apps.

“We will still have to work hard on these cases,” he said.

A name and postal address along with personal identity number or other identification number (for example, for business phones) will be required to purchase a pre-paid SIM from August 1st, SVT writes based on information from Sweden’s Post and Telecommunications Authority (Post- och telestyrelsen) and parliament.

When registering for the pre-paid card, the subscriber’s identity must be checked using a valid document such as a passport or driving licence.

Unregistered pre-paid cards will continue to work until February 1st, 2023.

READ ALSO: Which Swedish banks still let foreign citizens apply for a BankID?

Member comments

  1. What are tourists suppose to do? I recently visited Sweden and found it difficult with it being a cashless country now no sim cards…. it is expensive to use international phone plans. Phones are needed for nearly everything.

  2. does this mean that when I visit Sweden from Australia I will not be able to get a SIM card for my phone

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NORTHVOLT

Northvolt mystery deaths: Swedish police investigate why three men died

Police are investigating after three apparently healthy men were mysteriously found dead after working at Swedish battery maker Northvolt’s factory in Skellefteå.

Northvolt mystery deaths: Swedish police investigate why three men died

In January, a 33-year-old man was found dead in his bed after working an evening shift as a cleaner at Northvolt. A month later, a 19-year-old was also found dead in bed after his shift at the factory. And in June a 59-year-old man was found dead on his balcony.

The only things the three men seem to have in common are that their deaths cannot be explained, and that they all happened after they had worked shifts at Northvolt’s flagship factory.

They could just be a coincidence, but police are now looking into the deaths as one combined investigation, with the unit dealing with workplace environmental crimes on the case.

Swedish media report that on June 5th, Per-Håkan Söderström, 59, was given a ride home from Northvolt by his colleagues, who were supposed to pick him up again the following day. When he didn’t turn up to meet them as expected, they got police to help them enter his apartment, where he was found dead.

He had recently undergone a health examination, which indicated nothing strange.

Mahari Bakhari, 33, was the first to die. He moved to Sweden from Eritrea ten years ago and had recently relocated to Skellefteå to work at Northvolt, for the cleaning company Sodexo. The plan was that his wife and three young children would eventually join him. Bakhari had worked a shift at Northvolt on January 4th. His flatmate found him dead in bed the next day.

Maedin Ghidey Embaye, 19, had been working at the Northvolt factory for eight months according to news reports – his first job after graduating from school. His mother found him dead in bed the morning after a shift. Neither the autopsy of Embaye’s body nor the one of Bakhari was able to establish a cause of death.

“Finding deceased individuals in their homes doesn’t necessarily involve a crime but could be due to illness,” Johan Stabbfors, police lead investigator, told regional newspaper Norran.

“But with three cases in a short time linked to the workplace – that’s what has been flagged to us, but we are approaching it with an open mind and broad perspective. The most important thing is to determine what it could be. It could also just be a coincidence.”

Police have no concrete suspicion of any foul play or even that the deaths are linked to each other or the workplace. There are verbal reports that Söderström may have been exposed to something at Northvolt, but there are no such indications for the other two.

“What we need to do is find out what they could have been exposed to. We are approaching the connection without assumptions, but it’s about whether they were exposed to any substances and investigating what those substances are and what impact they may have had,” Stabbfors explained to Norran.

Sodexo and Northvolt have both said they welcome the investigation but are continuing to operate according to existing routines in the absence of a confirmed link to the workplace.

“We continuously collaborate with union and safety representatives to ensure a positive work environment for our employees,” Matti Kataja, Northvolt’s head of communications and public relations for the Nordic region, told Norran in an email.

In response to police looking into the possibility that Söderström and the other two had been exposed to or ingested something at Northvolt, he said:

“Our understanding is that this is based on a single verbal statement, not the medical examination. The police will investigate its validity. They have assured us that no exposure has been confirmed, but they are conducting a thorough investigation, which we welcome to dispel speculation.”

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