Two Huawei Technologies employees have been expelled from Denmark, following an inspection by authorities looking for work permit issues.
According to Bloomberg, the world's biggest telecommunications equipment-maker's offices in Copenhagen were searched on Thursday and four people were initially charged with breaking Danish laws covering residence and work permits. According to the Danish police, the charges against two of the people were later dropped.
Danish authorities told Bloomberg it was a "routine investigation" that they regularly conduct at work places relying on a high number of foreign employees. It is still unclear if the Huawei employees were Chinese nationals.
A Huawei spokesperson told the wire service that "these visa checks are routine" and the company was co-operating with the authorities.
The news is yet another setback for the Chinese company, which is facing a rising tide of global pressure as the US leans on its allies to ban the use of Huawei products and services due to "national security threats" linked to the company's close ties to the Chinese government and Chinese intelligence.
Huawei has denied installing Trojan horses in its networking equipment for alleged government spying.
However, a number of countries are ruling Huawei equipment out for their 5G rollouts, or are considering blocking the equipment-maker.
Japan has excluded Huawei from public procurement, and Australia and New Zealand have effectively blocked Huawei from involvement in the rollout of their 5G network infrastructure. TheUK, Canada, Poland, Norway and Germany are also assessing whether to exclude Huawei from forthcoming infrastructure deployments.
Poland last month arrested a Huawei employee and former Polish security official, accusing them of espionage against Poland. Huawei then fired the employee, who has denied any wrongdoing.
Last week, the US filed criminal charges in New York against Huawei and CFO Meng Wanzhou, as well as Huawei Device USA and Iranian subsidiary, Skycom. The 13-count indictment included charges for violating US sanctions against Iran, bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Separate charges were filed in Washington State accusing Huawei of stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile.
Huawei denied the allegations.
Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in December 2018 in Canada and the US government is seeking her extradition to the US.
Huawei is the world's biggest producer of telecoms equipment and ranks second in global smartphone sales, behind South Korea's Samsung and ahead of the US's Apple.
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