The Ecocrime Authority is requesting more checks on companies

Properties are lucrative crime tools and easy to store large sums of money in.

This is the opinion of the Ecocrime Authority, which is requesting more checks on limited companies.

– When we are connected, it is usually already too late, says Sara Persson.

This week Dagens Nyheter could tell that the corporate group that owns the district court building in Södertälje is said to have connections to the Södertälje network. Aftonbladet’s sources also believe that two of the men who acquired the property in 2016 are suspected of having connections to organized crime in Södertälje.

That organized crime makes use of real estate companies is a well-known problem for the Ecocrime Authority.

– Investing in real estate is a way to accumulate large capital from other crimes. It is also an effective activity for, for example, money laundering, to invest criminal profits in renovations so that they appear as legal funds when the properties are sold, says Sara Persson, who is a crime prevention specialist at the authority.

Moves the money if they catch their eye

She cannot comment on the case in Södertälje, but can tell how it often happens.

– Above all, it is about running many companies and using goalkeepers. It is very easy and cheap to start many companies in Sweden and then quickly move operations and money between the different companies if one catches the eye of the authorities.

To start a limited company, all you need today is access to a computer with internet, a bank ID and SEK 25,000 in share capital. The company can then be run for two years without the need to have an authorized accountant, regardless of how much turnover the company has.

Millions of kroner can be moved in transactions.

And if the actual owner has a food ban, there are no problems either.

– Then we see that it is easy to use goalkeepers who are allowed to stand as formal representatives. There is an extensive trade in ID documents and the person responsible for the company does not have to be the one who really owns and controls it.

“Then it’s often too late”

Who or who actually owns a limited company in Sweden appears in the company’s share books. But there is no central register – which makes it difficult to control in practice.

– You can contact the company directly and ask who the shareholders are, and they must have the information available and show it on request. But it is not formalized how this should happen, and they do not need to have the information digitally. They can have it written on a piece of toilet paper if they want.

The Ecocrime Authority usually only receives criminal reports in connection with a bankruptcy administrator going through the company’s books, if there is one.

– But then, when we get in, it’s usually already too late and the money gone.

“Too good at finding loopholes”

For this reason, the Ecocrime Authority is calling for more control bodies that have the opportunity to detect financial crime in companies earlier and a change in the Swedish Companies Registration Office’s mission so that they have a more controlling role.

– Today, they are above all a register authority and service authority. They have neither the task nor the resources to check compliance with the legislation.

Sara Persson believes that it must also become significantly more difficult to use goalkeepers on company boards. She says that today only a small part of economic crime is detected because there is a lack of sufficient control functions in society at large.

– For those involved in organized crime, today it is simply too easy to slip under the radar, find loopholes and circumvent laws. It is easy to replace goalkeepers, if someone were to be convicted, and then the company looks good again.