A seized phone led to a "complete drugstore for drugs" with hundreds of kilograms of narcotics and large amounts of cash.
Several people are now being prosecuted for extremely serious drug offenses.
In September 2023, two men in their 40s and 60s were stopped in a rental car with a boat trailer in Värmland near the border with Norway. The men claimed to be on a fishing trip, but the customs officers who stopped them suspected something.
In the car and boat, nearly 250 kilograms of cannabis were found. Before reinforcements arrived, one of the men threw a mobile phone into a nearby waterway.
A few days later, the police divers recovered the phone. When it was emptied, the investigators from the Customs Agency found chats and other data that revealed extensive criminal activity and regular deliveries of large quantities of narcotics throughout Sweden and Norway.
The younger of the two men was found to be renting a warehouse in Bålsta northwest of Stockholm. During a search of the premises, Customs discovered what they described as a "complete drugstore for drugs".
"We found boxes filled with various narcotics, a vacuum machine, and other equipment for packaging narcotics. In a cupboard that we broke open, we found even more drugs, a scale, and a total of 525,000 kronor in the form of 1,050 500-kronor bills," said Group Manager Johan Rekke, who led the Customs Agency's search, in a press release.
The warehouse contained over 160 kilograms of cannabis, 110 kilograms of narcotics tablets, and 24 kilograms of other drugs.
The two men are now being prosecuted for extremely serious drug offenses and extremely serious drug smuggling. Two additional people are being prosecuted for extremely serious drug offenses and drug offenses.
Conversations from chats indicate that more people were involved in the gang, but they have not been identified.
All four deny the charges.
