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full screen View of Strandvägen at Östermalm in central Stockholm. Archive image. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT
With lavish marketing, skimpy suits and a pearly white smile, the luxury broker took the industry by storm.
But the success story is suspected to have been based on serious crimes – and hidden connections to a gang member suspected of the murder of 12-year-old Adriana.
The trial begins today.
Within a couple of years, the newly graduated broker in his 40s established himself as one of the country’s most successful with sales values in the billions range.
But in May last year, the police and the Ecocrime Authority raided the office in Stockholm’s inner city. The star broker was arrested on suspicion of serious eco-crimes together with a business partner of the same age and two women.
In March, charges were brought for serious fraud, serious accounting violations and serious economic money laundering that allegedly took place between 2015 and 2022.
The suspicions concern mortgage fraud where false income information was used to mislead banks into granting mortgages. Among other things, the business partner and his wife are said to have received loans of almost SEK 10 million on false grounds.
The broker and the business partner are further charged with several cases of gross accounting offences, accused of not having recorded business events of close to SEK 50 million.
Employed murder suspect
The duo is also suspected of gross business money laundering in connection with several housing deals where, according to the indictment, the payment may have stemmed from criminality.
One of these concerns an apartment deal that was mediated by the broker in 2019. The seller was the business partner and the buyer was a 26-year-old gang criminal who is internationally wanted on suspicion of involvement in the murder of 12-year-old Adriana in Norsborg the following year.
When the 26-year-old applied for a mortgage, he stated that he was permanently employed as an IT manager at the brokerage firm with a monthly salary of SEK 65,000.
Salary payments to the 26-year-old were found in the company’s accounting. But only during three months that coincide with the time of the apartment purchase, something the Ecocrime Authority’s investigator describes as “remarkable”.
Denies crime
According to the star broker, the gang member was employed to “draw in business”. When other employees of the brokerage firm are questioned about the man, they have never heard of him.
The agency had big plans for expansion abroad, but was filed for bankruptcy last September. The broker and the other defendants deny wrongdoing.
– He believes that he followed industry practice regarding control of the money he received. And my principal has not been responsible for the company’s accounting, said the broker’s lawyer Behrang Eslami to Aftonbladet in connection with the prosecution being brought.
On Wednesday, the trial begins in the Stockholm District Court.
FACTS charged
The star broker in his 40s: Charged with two counts of gross fraud, aiding and abetting gross fraud, five counts of gross accounting violations, three counts of gross economic money laundering.
The business partner in his 40s: Charged with two counts of gross fraud, four counts of gross accounting violations, four counts of gross economic money laundering.
Woman in her 40s married to business partner: Charged with aggravated fraud.
Woman aged 55: Charged with serious money laundering and serious fraud.
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