According to the Institute against Bribery (IMM), the transport and vehicle industry is the industry with the largest number of bribes, both last year and over a five-year period.
One of the areas within the industry that seems most affected is car inspections, and last year four inspectors employed by Besikta were convicted of several cases of accepting bribes and grossly false certification.
The inspectors had issued false inspection certificates to around 50 cars. For example, a car owner must have paid SEK 5,000 via Swish to get his old Volvo through the inspection.
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Found 100s of suspected cases
Besikta as a company is not suspected of any wrongdoing, and in several of the cases it was thanks to the company’s internal investigations that the bribery offenses were discovered.
It is also estimated that the problems are not limited to the four inspectors who have now been convicted, but have in fact found hundreds of cases of inspections that seem suspicious. According to Magnus Mobergtechnical director at Besikta, bribery during inspections is not a new problem.
– Now we happened to discover a number of cases in a fairly short period, but I have worked in the industry for almost 30 years, so I know that there have been similar events far back in time, he tells TT.
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A serious crime
– This has probably been a fairly widespread problem that took place at lots of different inspection stations, says Martin Bresmanchamber manager at the National Anti-Corruption Unit, to TT.
Even if it involves relatively small bribes of a few thousand kroner, Martin Bresman believes that the crime should be considered serious.
He believes that it is partly dangerous to have cars that do not meet the requirements in traffic, and that it can be very damaging if a culture of bribery is established in Sweden as in other countries.
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