Billions gone in suspected mobile looting - that's how the crime happened

These are a large number of companies that have traded in mobile phones and IP telephony, and which are suspected of having been created to get over large sums of tax money in a so-called VAT spin.

Lots of quick and difficult transactions are made there in a short time, with the aim of eventually being able to get back VAT that has never been paid in - in practice a kind of theft of tax money.

- It is an extensive fraud that is going on, these are very large amounts.

And we also have cooperation with other EU countries, says Liz Kelenius, section manager at the Swedish Tax Agency.

According to the Swedish Tax Agency, the scope amounts to 2-3 billion.

But SVT has mapped the tangle and the review shows that the total sum can be even higher.

In addition to the handful of companies that are examined in the authorities' public affairs, there are a number of additional companies in the process, several of which also had very large sums of money.

- My assessment is that this is the largest fraud scheme that Sweden has been exposed to, says fraud expert Peter Forsman.

Ongoing crime

Peter Forsman works at the Internet Foundation and holds training for the police, among other things.

He has read the documentation about the tangle and says that it is the first time that Swedish taxpayers are directly affected by a VAT tangle of this magnitude.

- Previously, Sweden has not been the affected country but only a link in the chain.

Now the Swedish Tax Agency is the victim.

For the most part, there should never have been any real products behind the deals.

The Swedish Tax Agency's review of one of the companies, which the newspaper VLT was the first to report on, shows that alleged IP telephony never took place and that the same mobile phones spun several times in the chain.

But in the end, a large number of real mobiles have also been sold, to regular customers in regular stores.

- The VAT deducted will be a pure profit that can be used to dump prices on the market and put competition out of play, says Liz Kelenius at the Swedish Tax Agency.

Both she and Peter Forsman describe the tangle as a crime that is going on in this now.

- This is a full-blown fraud.

In the summer of 2020 alone, at least 20 new companies have been started, says Peter Forsman.