At least 12 suspected of fraudulently obtaining Finnish citizenship

At least 12 people are suspected of obtaining Finnish citizenship without proper grounds by paying for employment arrangements and language examinations, Yle reports. Police and the Border Guard in southeastern Finland suspect that a person arranged fictitious employment relationships for foreign nationals, enabling them to apply for residence permits and citizenship.

The citizenship applications of five other people were still pending when the preliminary investigation began. The case is also believed to involve people who obtained Finnish citizenship earlier, but no investigation was conducted in those cases because any possible offences had become time-barred.

The main suspect has established several companies in Finland since 2003. The Southeastern Finland Police Department and the Southeastern Finland Border Guard suspect that the companies had no genuine business activity, or very little of it.

People who applied for residence permits and citizenship in Finland are suspected of paying for employment arrangements, as well as for the organisation of their residence permits and citizenship applications.

Finnish citizenship applications require sufficient language skills. Investigators have found that the main suspect and accomplices took Finnish language examinations and completed study modules in Finnish on behalf of other people.

According to the police and the Border Guard, the citizenship applicants would not have had a genuine opportunity to obtain Finnish citizenship without the fraudulent arrangements.

The applicants suspected of using the fraudulent procedure and the main suspect are suspected of aggravated fraud. The investigation has also examined suspected aggravated forgery and aggravated accounting offences.