To curb the economic consequences of the corona pandemic, the government has introduced a series of billions in support. In May, the former National Police Chief Stefan Strömberg was appointed special investigator to prevent crime and cheating linked to corona support.

SVT has previously reported on suspected fraud, including in terms of sick pay. And that there is a high risk of cheating for some of the support, the special investigator confirms in his first interim report which has now been published.

- I have met with most major authorities to get basic information about how they work and what they lack, he says.

Risk of systematic crime

In the investigation, he has focused on four corona-linked benefits and sees great risks of cheating in relation to the abolished qualifying day and great risk of cheating and even systematic crime in terms of compensation for sick pay costs that employers can receive.

He believes that the reason is partly due to the fact that the authorities do not have sufficiently developed control mechanisms and that information that an authority needs takes time or is difficult to obtain.

This, combined with the fact that the applications are numerous and must be processed quickly, and that the authorities are partly unfamiliar, makes it difficult to check the applications carefully enough before money is paid out.

More information in December

The entire investigation should be completed in December. In this first interim report, Stefan Strömberg recommends that the government accelerate the reforms that have been proposed for a long time in order to create more flexible bureaucracy between authorities.

Minister of Social Insurance Ardalan Shekarabi believes that it was important to introduce the support quickly and that they follow the work of the inquiry.

- Of course, grant violations must be combated. A control work is underway at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency today where money is required to be returned. Of course, the work can always be improved and the government will carefully take note of the investigator's proposal.