In a new documentary series, SVT can show how a super secret part of the Swedish police resorted to unconventional and illicit methods in the hunt for a Swedish man, Jonas Falk, who was identified as a drug smuggler.

This is about Sweden's biggest drug target, Operation playa.

Police and prosecutors believed that Jonas Falk, who was convicted of several armed bank robberies in the 1990s and became known for spectacular escapes, was the leader of an international league that smuggled tons of cocaine across the world's oceans in the early 2000s.

In the work of trying to arrest Jonas Falk and others in the suspected league, including the so-called lone sailor Mauritz Andersson who was later arrested on a sailboat loaded with 1.4 tons of cocaine, the prosecutor enlisted the help of the most secret part of the Swedish police, SSI , Section for Special Operations.

Pretended to be rich criminals

To try to find out more about Jonas Falk and the cocaine smuggling he was suspected of, secret Swedish police agents were sent down to Sitges in Spain, where Jonas Falk sometimes stayed.

The agents' mission was to pretend to be rich criminals and spread large sums of money around them in luxury restaurants and nightclubs.

The purpose should have been to build identities that would attract Jonas Falk.

Secret documents and audio files that SVT has obtained show how the agents partyed around in pubs and bars in Spain for 11 months, despite the fact that they barely even came close to the goal, that is, to approach Jonas Falk.

Secret documents show how the Swedish agents partyed

Among other things, SVT has received documents showing that the prosecutor chose to extend the operation in Spain even though she knew that no results were obtained.

The Swedish agents also participated in an advanced criminal provocation, where they tried to use another non-criminal Swedish man as a springboard into the criminal league they thought Jonas Falk was leading.

Burglary in the house Jonas Falk lived in

In addition, the Swedish agents are accused by Jonas Falk and several others of breaking into the house where Falk lived when he was in Spain.

"The police went behind my back"

Responsible for the preliminary investigation leader for the entire Operation playa and thus ultimately responsible for what happened in Spain, was Karin Bergstrand, chamber prosecutor at the International Prosecutor's Chamber in Stockholm.

But she blames the police for the failure in Spain.

In an interview with SVT, prosecutor Karin Bergstrand says:

- The police went behind my back.

But you were the head of the preliminary investigation.

Is it your responsibility to have control over what happens in the preliminary investigation?

- Well, you might think so, but we are in the hands of the police.

If they do not do what we have agreed, I have very little opportunity to do anything about it.

What did you get out of their (SSI) business?

- Nothing in Spain!

Nothing.

It was completely wasted, says prosecutor Karin Bergstrand.

All sensitive logs deleted

What the Swedish secret police actually did in Spain has never been clarified.

When an internal investigation later tried to investigate what happened, it turned out to be impossible.

In an interview with an unnamed secret agent who worked for SSI, the agent admits that he deleted all logs of what the agents did during the most sensitive period in Spain.

Jonas Falk was eventually arrested and in the district court he was sentenced to 18 years in prison, but in the Svea Court of Appeal he was acquitted on all charges.

The Court of Appeal did not consider that the prosecutor's evidence held to convict him on any point.

SSI, the Section for Special Operations, was closed down after the failure in Spain.

But now a similar business has been started up again, a business that is as secret as before.

Watch the documentary Operation Playa on SVT Play already now or on SVT 1 starting on Tuesday 29 May at 21.00.