Fredrik74

On less reputable social media you can read more about it. There are more factors at play than his skin colour here. I will save my outrage/sympathy for a more worthy person.

the810

Yes, I've read that. Including the part where the chief of border police said he doesn't know that guy's case so he has "no idea" why he's always stopped.

Right. The guys crosses the border with thorough check 150 times, they never find anything, but he's "not worthy".

Fredrik74

If he really has been stopped that many times then of course he's being harassed but I'm saying it's not because of skin colour. The article says he's driving a Tesla but I know for a fact he used to drive a Maserati. I wonder what happened to that one...

I don't consider him reliable due to that.

https://www.docdroid.net/KTE9co5/t4939-15-pdf

the810

Would a Caucasian person in Tesla get stopped 150 times per year? I agree he may not be the best kind of person, but those border checks apparently never led to any discovery in his case.

Fredrik74

You mean if if that same person had tried to steal money and behaved the same way this person does? Absolutely.

Besides, he hasn't been stopped 150 times. It's only him saying that.

intuition

While it seems pointless to go into any potential crime history (especially if "reported" on less reputable social media) I don't see it as a valid argument. If you are convicted and paid your fines/served your sentence, you are a free man.

If the numbers are correct, that is ≈8 checks per month for over a year. N.b. we are talking about body and car search, not a simple document check. If he crosses the border daily Mon-fri this works out to him being checked every 2.nd-3.rd time he passes the border. There simply cannot exist a probably cause for that. If authorities have something on him that motivates this level, they are totally incompetent to never find anything. Other methods of surveillance would seem appropriate in that case, but again, 150 checks and zero finds indicates this is yet another "metod-utveckling" wasting everyone's time.

Fredrik74

It doesn't work like that. Known criminals will be checked more thoroughly than you will be. You're missing the point however. I simply don't believe him. That's what happens when you are a known fraudster. His videos show him getting stopped on both sides of the bridge. IMO, Swedish customs have been told by the Danes that this guy is up to no good. Older articles about him say this only happened in Denmark.

https://www.bt.dk/samfund/thomas-bli...gen-det-er-min

GUWonder

He really should look into how Danish and Swedish police and customs coordinate things. That may help him uncover what has been happening to him over the years.

Assuming both that he may be one of the group of people who drive across the bridge 3-4 times a day on certain days of the week -- and yes, there are people that do that since the cost really isn't that much once the Bropass has enough crossings in the period to make the additional drives cheaper than even the train -- and that he's one of the Danish business owners residing around Malmo but operating a business primarily/exclusively out of Denmark, it's really not a surprise to me that he would have had 300+ entries into Sweden and managed to get flagged down a bunch. Whether or not his search numbers are accurate, I'm not sure; I suspect his numbers are off substantially but still they are indicative of how things can go for some.

I haven't (yet) checked into who is running the license plate-reading databases and how any algorithms may be set to flag down vehicles/people coming in by surface transport means into Sweden, but there is a possibility that such surveillance state facilities could be used to cause someone like him to get harassed like crazy for no real good reason and there being no timely redress for his being repeatedly flagged down (and released without discovery of any contraband) unless he is willing to gamble on paying to get a court involved and hope it works out eventually.

I may have seen him driving what was his Maserati in Malmo, but it was years ago and only if it was a silver/grayish or white one. I am far more sure I've seen him in his white Tesla, but there are a group of bearded (usually shorter bearded) Italian-origin and Greek-origin business owners residing around Malmo that also have white Teslas. About who is registered at his address at the Turning Torso, a lot of foreign academics and other short-/medium-duration business owners/professionals often get registered at addresses in Sweden but never care to get themselves removed from the registry even after leaving the country. I think some people in the country have been watching too much Narcos on Netflix and thus may have been making an issue of who is also registered at his residence.

Did racist profiling at Swedish ports of entry hit him and get worse during the pandemic than it was before the pandemic? I don't think it has, but it's always been part of the background of what goes on when entering the country by way of the bridge-- going back to at least the very beginning of the bridge's opening to ordinary traffic and Sweden's entry into Schengen. But the racist profiling that hits at Swedish border crossings really does pale in comparison to what I've seen go on at ports of entry across much of Asia, across much of the US and Canada, and across parts of Latin America.

If I wasn't so busy trying to get people to rack up 4000 SJ Prio points on the cheap using the ALLA22 promo, maybe I'd trace down what happened to the Maserati.

intuition

This has become a substantial problem i the last few years, and not only because of mistakes / laziness to get removed from register. Some bostadsrättsföreningar insists on using their own set of apartment numbers - different from the official number - creating confusion and leading to a lot of wrong registrations too. I had a neighbour fighting to get register corrected after another neighbour accidentally registered in his apartment and then moved and didn't bother to register a new address. Because there was no official address to reach the culprit, authorities where frozen for a very long time.

Also, some people need an fake address in a certain city for tax purposes or for pretending to be separated from spouse or to claim benefits. It is very easy to fake an official address. Skatteverket doesn't do any validation and just accept anyone registering at any address, as long as they can give the correct details. In fact, this has become a big enough problem for skatteverket to launch a service where anyone can check if some else is registered in your home, and then report it. But most people would never notice someone is registered in their home, so naturally they don't browse skatteverkets web pages to find a service to remove false entries in the register.

GUWonder

Indeed typically many or most people would miss this kind of thing happening at their address unless someone looks themselves up online or has someone look them up online and tell them. However, during this pandemic, It would be hard to miss when someone is registered in their home during this pandemic: Region Skane, for example, made sure it's easier to notice this kind of thing. How so? The vaccination info mail went out to people registered at the address whether or not they still lived (or ever lived) at the address on file, at least as long as they had no record of being vaccinated locally. Whether people got the hint or not, it seems like a lot of people have other things to do with their time than to try to clear the registries of old residents.

The running joke at the embassy in Stockholm when having a "shady visa applicant" was that the Swedish person who's listed as the C/O for an address is more shady than the "shady visa applicant".

vanillabean

I read that “according to the world anti-dopiing body, it was only on February 7 that a WADA-accredited laboratory in Stockholm provided confirmation of an adverse analytical finding in Valieva's sample”.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/14/sport...ntl/index.html

Reduction in staff at the Swedish lab due to Covid? 🙄

Fredrik74

Wouldn't surprise me but I haven't seen a confirmation that was the case.

GUWonder

As of February 11th, Sweden's reported Covid-19 death count jumped up (from 16,358) to 16,501 deaths.

As of February 15th, Sweden's reported Covid-19 death count jumped up to 16,579 deaths.

GUWonder

Pandemic response measures are dead for the most part in Sweden. But the same can't be said with daily Covid-19 deaths this month, for the daily average Covid-19 deaths this month are more alive than has been the case during most of the sub-2 week pandemic periods in Sweden.

As of February 11th, Sweden's reported Covid-19 death count jumped up (from 16,358) to 16,501 deaths.
As of February 15th, Sweden's reported Covid-19 death count jumped up to 16,579 deaths.
As of Februrary 16th, Sweden's reported Covid-19 death count jumped up to 16,716 deaths.
As of February 17th, Sweden's reported Covid-19 death count jumped up to 16,768 deaths.
As of February 18th, Sweden's reported Covid-19 death count jumped to 16,852 deaths.

djjaguar64

So we ended up cancelling the departure from ARN on April 1 to CPH instead but the return is intact, that is, into ARN from SIN via FRA. Do you think that after March 31 international transit will be allowed for Canadian's. We return from Singapore Apr 10 into ARN.