The children were kept in isolation for many years - so the parents were exposed in ordinary tax control

Already in 2009, the parents are called to a meeting with several senior managers in the municipality in question. The parents have two compulsory school children at this time, but manage to get the municipality of Ystad to judge the children as "permanently staying abroad". The Swedish school duty thus ends.

The parents say the children study at home through an online school in the United States. A proper check on the part of the municipality then, prior to the start of the school in August 2009, had shown that everything was not right.

Instead, the years go by and the children are left without schooling. In various contexts, the parents of Ystad Municipality and the Swedish Tax Agency report on the family's successful companies. Nothing is discovered by the municipality, the children live by everything judging completely isolated in the family home.

The parents state that the family resides in France, the United States and Denmark, has grand plans for the couple's company and a showroom in Manhattan, New York. This is evidenced by the examination of the case of the Österlen family and the isolated children made by the newspapers Sydsvenskan and Helsingborgs Dagblad.

In the spring of 2018, the Swedish Tax Agency will launch an investigation that will change everything. The authority then discovers that the father received sickness benefit for almost ten years. The mother has been on sick leave since 2015. No indications of any trips abroad, no passports issued to the couple's children.

In May 2018, the five children are between 4 and 18 years old. Four of them should go to school, but have never done so - anywhere. But the mother's story is different: There are plans for the children to become a police officer, and to study at art school. One of the children is said to be reading a Hermods course.

But when the Swedish Tax Agency's investigation is complete, there are no traces of completed education: not at the school in California declared by the family, not at the Swedish embassy in Washington DC, nor at the education company Hermods.

The authority writes "unknown country" about the five children in its investigation, and then alerts the municipality concerned. When the summer stands at the door, 2018, the headmaster of the municipality gets sneezed about the situation of the family in question following tips from a supervisor. The school principal soon finds out that the social services are now investigating the family.

On August 21, the municipality's newly-appointed school principal emailed to the current California school. The response from the principal came after a few hours:

"They are not students at our school."

On August 29, the authorities act. Police and social security secretaries go to the current home. Occasionally, the social services make a decision to urgently care for the four minors from the siblings, who have lived completely isolated from the outside world throughout their upbringing.

The decision that the children in the family in question should not be subject to compulsory schooling, but be judged as "permanently staying abroad", was made by former managers in the municipality. However, the school principal who started investigating the family does not want to place any blame on his predecessors:

- People have done what they thought was right. But I regret that throughout history, no more detailed checks have been made on this administration, says Dennis Hjelmström, head of school at Ystad municipality, to Sydsvenskan / HD.

The School Inspectorate is now initiating an investigation into whether Ystad Municipality has done what is necessary to secure the right to education.

- This is serious information about children who have been completely without education for so long, says Elizabeth Malmstedt, Head of Unit at the School Inspectorate, to TT.