Yesterday, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Marianne Forsström at the Swedish Environmental Crime Agency submitted a lawsuit concerning eight people in a serious economic crime scandal.
One of the accused is a Swedish elite judge, who has judged at an international level.
VAT fraud scheme
The judge is charged with four different crimes: Serious tax crime, money laundering and aiding and abetting a serious tax crime in two cases.
The serious economic crime consists of a VAT fraud scheme through trade in mobile phones.
To avoid reporting outgoing VAT, the perpetrators have used an advanced construction of fictitious counter-trade in telecom products and telecom services.
- It is a question of an arrangement with mobile phone trading to access the VAT that would be paid to the state, explains Deputy Chief Prosecutor Marianne Forsström for SVT Sport.
False invoices
The crimes are considered serious because they involve large sums.
In the lawsuit, it can be read that the untrue invoices that the elite judge added to the accounting material amount to over a quarter of a billion kronor.
The crimes have international ramifications.
Prosecutor Marianne Forsström does not know how big and how far these go.
- We have not investigated it all the way, but we see that it is a pattern that is repeated in several different contexts, she says.
No connection to football
Marianne Forsström does not know how harsh a punishment she will demand, but it will be several years.
- It depends on what emerges during the trial.
But if you only look at the tax amounts evaded, the penalty value is between five and eight years in prison, she says.
The elite referee who last week was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for gross fraud had problems with gambling addiction and had himself played in matches that he judged with.
However, the case of the now accused referee does not seem to have any connection with his sports career.
- No, not as we have seen, the prosecutor says.
The judge has been in custody since March because the prosecutor considers that there is a risk that he will flee abroad, and he will continue to do so until the trial, which starts on January 26.