Is this immigration business idea legal?

[luxcity]

Could you please give me some advice? I have a friend who has immigrated from a middle eastern country to Sweden on a nonimmigrant student visa. My friend has thought of a way to earn some extra money. I have some apprehensions about my friend’s idea so we both thought to ask your advice about the legal boundaries first.

The idea is to help another person in the same middle-eastern country to fill out an application for a short course in Sweden for the purpose of gaining a temporary visa. My friend does not know this person except through relatives. The application process for the course could be done simply by the applicant directly online (without my friend’s help), but the applicant does not understand how to use the internet well. My friend would fill out the application accurately and honestly for the applicant and take it to the school on behalf of the applicant, check periodically with the school to monitor the process and report back to the applicant how things are going, then ask the school to send the admittance letter to the applicant. The applicant would then take the letter of admissions to the embassy and apply for his visa. For this process of helping the applicant, my friend would be given approximately 3,400 euro from the applicant to be split between my friend and a relative who lives in that same middle-eastern country and who knows the applicant and gave the applicant’s information to my friend.

My first question is: would this situation be legal to do?
My second question is: based on the facts that my friend does not know the applicant personally and the Swedish course that he applied for is a short course, if the applicant decided to overstay his visa, would my friend be liable?
My third question is: Would registering such an activity as a business help to make it legal?

Any and all information or thoughts that you could provide on this matter would be greatly appreciated as it is very important to my friend to stay on the proper side of the law, but we need to be aware of where the boundaries are. Thank you very much.

[Administrator]

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This would be considered working (as an immigration agent).

Without permission to work, it would not be legal. Transferring money in and out of Swedish banks should be done carefully ... their systems are set up to monitor financial transactions carefully. The Swedish government is rather interested in making sure all appropriate taxes are paid, and they've had quite some time and invested quite some resources in closing loopholes.

I'm not up on the Swedish immigration laws, so I might not be correct, but CURRENTLY, the sponsor of an immigrant is not responsible. However, the degree of the relationship could have an impact. Also, in the coming year there seem to be some changes in the wind.

Your friend, who is in Sweden on a student visa, will have some difficulty registering as a business. It would involve changing his student visa to another type so that he could obtain permission to work &/or own/operate a business.

Also, and again my understanding is not perfect on this, but businesses in Sweden are partners with the government (part of the socialist structure of the country).

I had business with a Swedish business owner a couple years back. Based upon our discussions & my memory, at least one owner of the Swedish business must have Swedish nationality.

There may be exceptions to that, but it's not one of my strong points.

Therefore, look into it carefully.

the Admin