The criminal economy is estimated to generate between 100 and 150 billion kronor each year and it is growing.
Economic crime, just like other crimes, targets areas where it is possible to make a large profit. The Economic Crime Unit notes in a situation report published on Monday that serious criminals are now focusing on welfare systems, credit institutions, banks, premium pension systems, and large construction and infrastructure projects.
The classic economic criminal with white-collar cuffs still exists. But it's not the big problem, it's all the multi-criminals who are engaging in economic crime, says Rikard Jermsten.
Industrial scale
Within the lucrative areas that serious crime is now focusing on, tax crimes, accounting crimes, money laundering crimes, and pure frauds are being committed – often through complex corporate structures and with the help of so-called straw men.
The criminality is often conducted in conglomerate-like corporate structures with a parent company at the top and several smaller companies at the bottom where money from criminal activities is laundered in large-scale setups.
If we saw a few years ago that it was a few companies and maybe 10 million kronor that were criminal profits that figured in our money laundering cases, it's today hundreds, perhaps thousands of companies in a single case. And the profits can be 100 million or more. Now they are conducting money laundering on an almost industrial scale, says Jermsten.
Double loss
In the report, the Economic Crime Unit also highlights the criminals' entry into and exploitation of welfare systems and the consequences it has.
We have a situation where we lose in double sense. We both finance criminality through our welfare systems while we don't get what we should for our tax money. So it's a double win for the criminal and a double loss for society. And it's unsustainable, says Rikard Jermsten.
Even though the picture being painted is dark and the development is going fast in the wrong direction, he believes it will be possible to turn it around.
We in the judiciary should combat the crimes committed and we should prosecute the criminals. But we will need to build the systems in a better way so that criminality doesn't find new ways, says Rikard Jermsten.
