Response to interpellation 2022/23:26 on romance scams

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Madam Speaker! Alexander Christiansson has asked me what I intend to do to prevent and curb so-called romance scams.

We are talking about a type of fraud that is a global phenomenon and which affects people in many countries. Sweden is unfortunately no exception. Here, these frauds are generally linked to various international criminal networks. Against this background, international police cooperation is an extraordinarily important part of crime fighting, and the Swedish police cooperate with Interpol in this area.

The police also work on crime prevention by disseminating information in various ways to the general public and different actors active in the field. The purpose is to increase awareness of this type of crime, strengthen people's ability to resist fraud attempts, and reduce the feeling of shame for those who have been targeted. The police have also initiated a structured cooperation with the banking sector to strengthen the preventive work in the area of fraud. Additionally, various measures have been taken internally within the Police Authority to increase knowledge about this crime and increase prosecutions.

Regarding the government's work, we have just launched a major offensive against crime. Political reforms shall be implemented in several different areas to strengthen the efficiency of the justice system, combat organized crime, and provide crime victims with increased redress. This will also be able to contribute to an improved ability to combat organized fraud, including the type of fraud that we are discussing here today.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Alexander Christiansson (SD)

Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for a very good answer! It is a reassuring answer in many ways.

Romance scams are a sensitive issue for many people, not least for those who have been subjected to that type of fraud but also for their relatives and other people in their surroundings who are affected by this in a powerful way. Therefore, this is important to me.

I think fraud in general is important to discuss here in the chamber, but I personally have become fixated on just this type of fraud because it has other dimensions that make this sensitive and important. Therefore, I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate with the Minister for Justice today.

The reason why it is very sensitive is that it involves a great deal of stigmatization to be subjected to fraud in general, not least romance scams. Those who are targeted may not be called stupid, but they are questioned. Are they less intelligent because they were targeted, or how can they fall for something so stupid, one often hears, which is a sign of a terrible misunderstanding of what this is actually about.

Four years ago, I had this debate with the then minister. At that time, there were approximately 80 reports per month. Unfortunately, it is steadily increasing all the time, and that is why it is important to raise this issue again.

Today, there is a support organization called Stoppa Romansbedrägerier which works hard to increase knowledge about what this is about. We have the great honor of having them visiting the gallery here today - Violet, Lena, Jane, and Susanne. The reason I became stuck on or came across this and learned more about it is a documentary that was broadcast on Sveriges Television. It is called Lurad på kärlek och miljoner and covers exactly this phenomenon. That was also how I myself came into contact with the support association.

To understand what fraud is about, one almost has to go back and understand it historically, because fraud has always existed in human history. People have been defrauded in different ways, and different methods have been used to deceive and manipulate people for own gain. As I see it, it is perhaps one of humanity's darkest sides - how one can do something so terribly evil to another human being.

Due to digitalization and the advancement of the internet in recent decades, we have seen that a new type of fraud has emerged that manifests somewhat differently and where even darker paths are taken to deceive people. These are very complex approaches.

The people who are targeted, which I will return to in my upcoming remarks, often establish long-term relationships with people. This creates strong trust, and in turn, it causes them to be deceived into giving or lending money to people. These are international collaborations and organized crime where they know very well what they are doing. These are gangs that work strategically with this type of fraud, and again, I will provide a few more examples of this. That is where the preventive work becomes important, because it is almost impossible to prosecute these perpetrators.

The Minister mentioned in his answer that the Police Authority has initiated a structured cooperation with the banking sector to strengthen the preventive work in the area of fraud. Could the Minister elaborate a bit more on what this entails in more detail and what is intended to be done moving forward?

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Madam Speaker! I think the way Alexander Christiansson approaches this issue is very pleasing – one takes the victim's perspective. It is very easy in the crime policy debate to consider other considerations or highlight other aspects of crime than the consequences for the individual people who are affected.

If I may start by saying something general, the government, in cooperation with the Sweden Democrats in the Riksdag, has said that during the mandate period we shall initiate a shift where we reduce the focus on the perpetrator and increase the focus on the crime victim, but also on society's protection against different types of organized crime.

When I familiarized myself with the issue before today's discussion, I noted that the proportion of reported fraud crimes that consist of this type of fraud is admittedly not particularly large: approximately 1 percent of the total. On the other hand, it has been shown that over 12 percent of the crime profits from fraud offenses come from exactly romance scams. I think this underscores that, in addition to the personal violation it of course entails to be subjected to such crime, it involves substantial economic amounts. It is therefore both a major violation of privacy for the individual and frauds that, taken as a whole, are very extensive in economic terms.

Being subjected to the type of fraud crime that Alexander Christiansson raises is also associated with stigmatization, so there are likely large numbers of unreported cases. We are therefore talking about reported frauds. If we add fraud attempts to this, i.e., attempts to acquire financial means in that way without succeeding, we see a large extent of this type of crime. This underlines the importance of the issue that Alexander Christiansson has raised today.

Regarding the issue that Alexander Christiansson raised at the end of his opening remarks, the interaction between the Police Authority and various financial actors, not least banks, is something that has struck me. One may have tried to approach this assignment from a different angle than the heavy organized crime that is often associated with gang shootings and that type of crime. We have known from before that not least drugs are an incredibly important source of income for such criminal networks. What has really struck me initially, however, is how incredibly significant economic crime and fraud have also become as sources of income for organized crime.

When one asks the police who their most important partners are when it comes to this type of fraud crime, the private actors, who are intermediaries of financial transactions, are also mentioned to a large extent from the management level.

The police have initiated a very concrete cooperation with four of the major banks in Sweden in collaboration with the Swedish Bankers' Association. The purpose is to, at an early stage – it is a collaboration between law enforcement agencies and private actors – be able to detect and prevent this type of crime, and when it does occur, also improve the possibilities to solve the crimes and prosecute the criminals we are talking about.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Alexander Christiansson (SD)

Madam Speaker! The Minister just pointed out that there is a large dark figure. It is simply a matter of going into how one would think if one were to be subjected to a fraud. It is, of course, nothing that one likes to post on social media and boast about, because there is a very strong stigmatization from the surroundings and society at large. That is also, I believe, what might be one of the major sticking points. I mean that we must work from all sides to remove that stigmatization, because it is not about people who make decisions out of stupidity.

One must understand what kind of organizations they are. You can look up the people who commit these crimes. They have passport details. They have employers. They have family members whom you come into contact with and get to know. But everything is a big bubble and a big lie, which is what makes one get caught. One has a relationship for a long time before one enters a situation where one is asked for money.

It is exactly as the minister says. When it comes to romance scams specifically, the average value is 350,000. That is 350,000 for a private individual. Not all too infrequently, it is older people who, in the autumn of their lives, seek love on the internet. It is quite incredible volumes of money that we are talking about here.

The most common example is that a person poses as a former American military member or doctor, or a current military member working within the army in another country – Syria, Afghanistan, or something else. You get in contact with the person and build up a relationship. You check the website. I have been in and looked at some of these websites. It can be large companies, but it can also be fictitious websites from the American army where you find the person with photographs and names. You build a relationship over a very long time. It can be half a year, a year, or an even longer time. You have daily contact.

One talks and speaks with each other daily before it turns out that this person ends up in a situation in the country where he cannot get money out. But the person has a lot of money in the USA which he then "comes from". He then seeks help, for example, to be able to buy a plane ticket. One gives away these funds. Then it becomes more, more and more. Eventually, one ends up in a vicious spiral where one feels an incredible sense of despair: How am I going to get back the capital that I have now lent out? Then one lends out more money. In the end, one is caught in a dilemma.

There is a text that Stoppa Romansbedrägerier has written. It is actually self-evident to me, but I would like to read out what it says. One wants to work to increase the understanding for those who are affected by romance or investment scams. It is about seeing them as crime victims - exposed to fraud, social manipulation, and economic violence. The response therefore needs to be good. One must show empathy and understanding as the person is in crisis. It is about the affected person being met with helpfulness from authorities and involved operations, for example banks. Shame and guilt should lie with the perpetrator.

That this even needs to be said today is quite incredible. Unfortunately, many of those who are subjected to this type of crime experience that they are also being stigmatized by the authorities. It is a problem.

I have a list that I will hand over to the Minister – because time passes faster than one thinks when one is debating – with proposals for measures that could actually have a direct effect on precisely this. This concerns, not least, the dating sites' own responsibility. They should have a responsibility to warn and flag accounts that are suspected to be scammers. That is an example that I intended to ask the Minister about.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Madam Speaker! First and foremost, I would like to say a big thank you for the opportunity to take part in the text that Alexander Christiansson read out. I agree that it is naturally distressing that one should have to write and disseminate a text as self-evident as the one that the interpellor read out.

Fraud means that one is being deceived. It is quite characteristic of many fraud crimes that the victim of the fraud crime feels that it is associated with shame to have specifically been deceived. Another type of fraud criminality that we unfortunately see escalating to a very high degree is fraud targeted at the elderly. Even if it is not about romance scams, it is precisely the fact that one has been the object of a fraudster – that one has allowed oneself to be deceived – something that prevents many crime victims from telling about this and reporting the criminality they have been subjected to.

I just noted that as large a proportion as one-third of those who are victims of romance scams are counted as elderly or disabled. It means that even this crime seeks out victims who, for various reasons, are judged to be easier to manipulate than others. It says something about the cynicism behind that type of crime.

I cannot answer directly to the question that Alexander Christiansson asked at the end, exactly how one should work against different types of dating sites, apps, or platforms. That is something I would like to discuss further. I look forward to taking part in the concrete proposals that Alexander Christiansson says he will now hand over.

What I can say, however, is that the insight that this is a crime that largely occurs in a digital environment means that law enforcement must also keep up in that area. A concrete issue that is discussed internationally and in the European context is how one should be able to exchange evidence between different countries in a completely different way than today, for example. In this case, you probably have the perpetrator in one country and the crime victim in another country. Is it evidence that is very difficult to obtain? Does it exist digitally? It can be located far outside Sweden's borders when one tries to get hold of it.

I can say one concrete thing that I envision. It is better cooperation at the EU level regarding the possibility for law enforcement agencies to find out and collect the electronic evidence needed so that, in the end, more of these criminals can be prosecuted.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Alexander Christiansson (SD)

Madam Speaker! I am, once again, grateful for the answer, Minister. I know that the new government has as a major ambition to actually wage a full-scale war against crime, not least organized crime.

This is very organized. If one understands the extent of how these gangs work to build up virtual bubbles, one also understands that the transaction itself, which occurs from Sweden, is practically impossible to follow up on, which means that practically no one is prosecuted. If there isn't a conviction, one also falls between the cracks of the authorities, not least with the Enforcement Authority (Kronofogden). There, one is not classified as a crime victim, which makes it, for example, difficult to become debt-restructured.

It is such things that I mean the new digitized world has brought with it. It is new aspects of things in our surrounding world. What I mean is that politics needs to keep up and be alert and quick on its feet to be able to address these matters, so that those people who are exposed are also seen as crime victims.

But it is truly complex. I have devoted myself to digging into how it works with bank loans, for example. Is it reasonable to take bank loans very quickly, which is often what it concerns in this case? Yes, I don't know. Free will and people's own ability to make decisions is often in conflict with regulating and legislating on this. It is complex. It is not a completely simple matter. But I still mean that there are things that we can do and that we can speed up. It is not least about preventive work - to be able to prevent this type of crime. I mean that it is incredibly important precisely given that crime is growing. It is urgent.

The speech at riksdagen.se, in Swedish (opens in a new tab)

Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)

Madam Speaker! I would like to extend a warm thanks to Alexander Christiansson for raising this important issue in the chamber. I would like to address directly those who are visiting the chamber today, who are driving and raising the issue in the debate and who act in civil society in order to be able to provide support to others who have been affected by this type of crime. It is essential that there is an interaction between politics and society outside of politics so that these types of issues come to the surface and are discussed in a straightforward and open way.

I also think that we can jointly issue an appeal to people all over the country who are following the debate and who may themselves have been subjects of this type of fraud, either attempted fraud or having actually been defrauded. Even though it feels shameful to have let oneself be deceived, it is incredibly important that one dares to step forward and report crimes that one has been subjected to. If one dares to do that, I believe that one will find that one can also receive very good support both from law enforcement authorities, from an understanding environment, and from civil society and politicians who are very engaged in these issues.

From the debate, I take with me the task of, in the contexts where I am present, not least in contact with law enforcement authorities, to bring up and highlight just this aspect of fraud crimes to ensure that the work that I know is ongoing also receives the attention it deserves.

The interpellations debate was hereby concluded.

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