Sweden detains 9 illegal workers: report

Swedish authorities detained 9 workers without work permits at a construction site in southern Stockholm, Swedish public television broadcaster SVT reported Sunday.

The Swedish Work Environment Authority and the Border Police raided a construction site in southern Stockholm where 100 new apartments are being built. Nine people from Uzbekistan who were here on tourist visas have been put in detention and will be repatriated because they lack work permits.

The sub-contractor now faces stiff fines.

Mikael Roos, an inspector with the Swedish Work Environment Authority, said the company did not have order in its personnel register.

It is unclear how big the fines against the companies will be, but according to the Swedish Work Environment Authority, the sub-contractor was not following the laws.

"The building company is a Swedish company with foreign workers and that is where the law has been broken. They probably don't have the correct terms of employment. What it says on the paper and what is happening in reality does not match. The Swedish Economic Crime Authority and the Swedish Tax Authority are investigating," Mikael Roos said.

The Swedish government presented several measures to address the problem of people living in Sweden illegally, in the wake of the truck attack on April 7. The new measures include cracking down on companies that hire undocumented workers.

On April 7, a man hijacked a truck and drove it down one of Stockholm's busiest pedestrian streets, killing five people and injuring 15 others. One woman who was severely injured in the attack died three weeks later in the hospital.

Rakhmat Akilov, a man from Uzbekistan who was living underground after his asylum application was rejected, told police that he was the driver of the truck. Endit