The man is suspected of, among other things, aggravated taking of bribes in 21 cases, between autumn 2020 and summer 2021 in several municipalities in Örebro County. Besikta, where he worked, has 197 stations in 162 locations in the country.
"Through our internal ongoing checks, we found anomalies and deviations in the employee's work and the results of inspections," says CEO Daniel Hjortström.
"This led to an in-depth analysis. Since we did not receive satisfactory answers, he was separated from his work and we chose to report it to the police.
Two other people, suspected front men, are charged with aiding and abetting aggravated taking of a bribe. Another eight are charged with giving a bribe. Among them are people living in Skåne, Östergötland and Halland.
"Of course, I take what happened extremely seriously. In our system, just like in other social systems, it is possible to find ways around and our task is to plug the holes, continues Daniel Hjortström.
Fears large number of unrecorded cases
According to the indictment, the defendants have swished tens of thousands of kronor between them. The police have also found transactions and messages on mobile phones and accounts. According to prosecutor Hawjin Shamer, the bribery should be considered aggravated because the inspection technician systematically abused his position, and because it involved the exercise of public authority.
"Companies must follow many rules, abusing it as an employee is serious. We need to feel safe when driving on the roads," she says.
Hawjin Shamer does not believe that it is unusual for people to succeed in bribing inspection technicians to get their vehicles approved:
"From what I've seen, this seems to be widespread.
According to the indictment, the man admitted that he issued inspection reports for vehicles that were not inspected at an inspection station and that he received payment for approving vehicles. SVT News Örebro has sought the suspect's defense lawyer, without getting an answer.