- I think the forecasts for prosecution are pretty bad actually.

It is difficult to be able to prove these crimes for several different reasons, so my forecast is that there will not be very many prosecutions with the regulations we have, says Karin Lindkvist, senior prosecutor at the City Prosecutor's Office in Stockholm.

The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth has received upwards of three thousand tips about suspected cheating with the support for short-term work, and by the end of June the authority had made 149 police reports.

SEK 36 billion has been paid out so far, but so far only one prosecution has been brought for suspected fraud with the support.

And there are problems with bringing the suspected crimes together with the legislation, say several prosecutors that SVT spoke to.

- In my opinion, it is required that there is an error at the time of the application itself in order for it to be a crime at all.

That part is very difficult to show because the application itself has a format where it is very easy to just click in and get a payment, says Karin Lindkvist, senior prosecutor.

Since last year, she has had about twenty investigations, which she has closed.

"Should introduce a grant violation for companies"

This problem was also raised by government investigators when he submitted his proposals for measures to combat crime with corona aid in December.

- We gave the recommendation that a subsidy violation should be introduced for companies.

Such a crime has been created for the adjustment support that the Swedish Tax Agency has, so it has been opened up to make such a change, says Stefan Strömberg, former lawyer and government investigator.

Utilizes the systems

The inquiry with the proposals was submitted to the Minister of Justice Morgan Johansson (S).

SVT nyheter has contacted him through his press secretary and asked questions about whether there is an ongoing review of how violations of the support can be counteracted, but has not yet received an answer.

- We definitely think it needs to be prioritized, it is an incredible amount of money and I think there will be more such grant models in the future.

There must be reasonable guarantees that they will not be used, says Stefan Strömberg.

And the prosecutor thinks it is unfortunate that so few are prosecuted for suspected crimes with the short-term support.

- It attracts people who realize that you can use the systems.

Enormous sums have been spent, but unfortunately we will probably not get as far on the crime-fighting path as we had hoped for, says Karin Lindkvist, senior prosecutor.