Växjö District Court sentences seven people to long prison terms for several cases of serious tax crime and serious business laundering crime.

The principals of the company that was judged to be the “last company in the chain” are sentenced to eight and seven years in prison respectively.

According to the verdict, they have committed extensive VAT fraud through so-called carousel trading with mobile phones and untrue invoices.

Hair salon became super wholesaler

One of the companies started as a hairdressing salon in Halmstad - but in a short time increased its turnover to become a giant wholesaler in mobile phones and IP telephony, at least on paper.

In total, the prosecutor has claimed that the eight accused, five of whom come from Kronoberg County and the others from Halland and Stockholm, snatched the state SEK 190 million.

The indictment has been the first to reach a court in the fraud scam that experts and prosecutors described as an "attack on Sweden" and as the largest fraud scam that has affected the tax system.

It is characterized by extensive transactions with real and fictitious goods, where the purpose has been to access money from the state - partly by avoiding paying VAT, but also by claiming back VAT that has never been paid.

SVT's review has shown that the tangle can include a total of over 100 companies, and that there are links to both serious organized crime and to large, well-established companies.

Over 100 companies

The trial in Växjö District Court took several weeks and the verdict has been postponed twice.

When the trial ended in March, the prosecutor demanded long prison sentences for everyone involved.

A total of eight people have been charged, all of whom have denied the crime.

Earlier this year, the Economic Crime Authority received a grant from the government after sounding the alarm that the complicated investigations were taking resources from other crime areas.

In March, 13 prosecutors worked on more than 20 preliminary investigations, targeting a total of more than 50 companies.

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser.

We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Read more about browser support

This is how we examined the VAT coup Photo: SVT

SVT is looking for the parties.

Do you know more about the plot or something else SVT should review?

Contact our digging reporters.