Response to interpellation 2024/25:516 on the criminal economy
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 M considers it central to choke the criminal economy to counter organized crime and prevent companies from being used as tools for crime 1. 1 M argues that the government, through reforms, is working to increase safety and the recovery of criminal profits 1. M argues that crime is a growing disadvantage for Sweden's competitiveness. M considers that Sweden has not been equipped for the current reality and that the government is taking important measures to break old patterns. 2 M argues that the police have made progress in crime clearance 2. 3 S argues that companies are deeply concerned that crime threatens the development of the business sector 3. S argues that new approaches are required because crime is often white-collar and legal. S argues that illegal competition and crime in the working life threaten serious companies. 4 S wants the government to find approaches that make business owners feel seen 4.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Ingela Nylund Watz has asked me what concrete measures the government and I plan to take to counter the criminal economy, which threatens serious companies and Swedish growth, and what concrete proposals the government and I are pushing forward in the EU to counter the use of companies as tools for crime.
I am very pleased for the opportunity to discuss these issues today. We know that organized crime generates 100–150 billion kronor every year. These are funds that come from various sources. It concerns drug sales and extensive fraud directed against our elderly and our welfare systems, and we know that these are funds that nourish the criminal networks. To put a stop to organized crime, it is therefore completely central that we also choke the criminal economy.
Strangling the criminal economy is also one of the central goals in the national strategy against organized crime that the government decided on last year. It is about preventing the incorrect use of public funds, combating drug-related crime, preventing companies from being used specifically as tools for crime, increasing the recovery of criminal profits, and utilizing the full potential of what is often described as various administrative measures, i.e., measures that do not involve crime and punishment but allow one to reach the crime from other angles.
In line with this, the government is now rolling out a long series of reforms and measures. Let me just mention a few from the past year.
In April 2024, the government gave the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, Brå, a clear mandate to study how companies are used as tools for crime by actors in the criminal environment and to provide concrete proposals on how this crime can be countered.
In July last year, a new law on reporting obligations entered into force. It concerns countering incorrect payments from the welfare systems as well as fraud, rule violations, and crime in the working life.
In September, the government strengthened and extended the mandate to the nine agencies that cooperate to counter what we call work-life crime. The agencies shall continue to conduct and develop the work at the so-called work-life crime centers, among other things to strike harder against criminal economy, organized crime in a corporate environment, human trafficking, human smuggling and human exploitation occurring in work life.
In November 2024, the new legislation on independent forfeiture came into force. This new form of forfeiture means concretely that a person who has large amounts of cash or luxury items without being able to explain where they come from risks losing them, even if in the individual case it is not possible to prove that the person is suspected of or convicted of a crime. This is a new front against economic crime and the criminal economy with a very large potential.
In December 2024, the government tasked the Swedish Police Authority, the Swedish Economic Crime Authority, and the Swedish Tax Agency with establishing a new financial intelligence center. The purpose is to develop cooperation between authorities and the business sector, particularly the banks, regarding crimes with links to the financial system, such as money laundering, fraud, and other similar crimes.
Now, at the turn of the year, the proposals in the bill Bolag och brott entered into force. It concerns a long series of measures, all of which have the aim of preventing and combating crimes committed in and through companies.
Parallel to this, a number of law enforcement agencies have worked on a mandate from the government to strengthen the work to increase the recovery of proceeds from crime. The mandate is to be reported at the end of this month.
As the interpellor also points out, the fight against the criminal economy cannot only be waged at the national level. Seven out of ten criminal networks within the EU are active in more than three member states, and according to Europol, criminal networks within the EU largely use legal business structures to conceal their activities, facilitate money laundering, and expand their operations in various ways. To combat cross-border crime, joint measures are also required. Sweden carries out very active work within the EU to counter the use of companies as tools for crime in cross-border crime.
It is, for example, about implementing the EU's anti-money laundering package and the directive on the recovery and confiscation of assets that has been decided at the EU level. It is also about giving law enforcement agencies better tools, such as access to digital data, and improving cooperation between the law enforcement agencies in the member states and with the law enforcement resources available within the EU, not least Europol.
By striking at the opportunities to enrich oneself financially through crime, society can reduce the drivers to engage in criminality and counteract the fact that crime profits build up even stronger and better-organized criminal activities. The Government continues, of course, to analyze the need for further legislative tightening and other measures, all with the aim of strangling the criminal economy and increasing safety in society.
Ingela Nylund Watz (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the detailed answer!
I want to start by saying that the long enumeration that the Minister makes when it comes to measures against the criminal economy demonstrates good efforts that the government has made, and as far as I can judge and remember, we have been in agreement on all of them.
Unfortunately, I suspect that the Minister has not quite grasped the very core and point of my interpellation. It is important to have a general discussion about the criminal economy, and we can continue that discussion today as well. But the point of my interpellation is that a large proportion of Swedish companies are being subjected to crime and feel great concern about this, both regarding the fact that they have actually been subjected to crime and regarding the risk of being subjected to crime. Several of them are even so concerned that they state in surveys that this criminality risks jeopardizing Sweden's growth.
In Svenskt Näringsliv's report Brottsbarometern 2024, it appears that 36 percent of Swedish companies were affected by crime last year. Småföretagarnas Riksförbund has in its report Brott mot företagen 2025 reported that over 30 percent of their member companies are subjected to crime annually.
In October 2024, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in Uppsala presented a survey that they repeatedly conduct called Status Sthlm. They had interviewed 1,500 companies that were asked to respond to a survey on how they view crime. The results show that 90 percent of the companies believe that the criminal economy threatens the development of the business sector and can hinder Swedish growth. In my opinion, it is deeply worrying that the companies perceive their reality in this way.
Even more worrying is that many companies – according to some surveys as many as half of all companies – choose not to report crimes because they lack confidence that the police will act. Several assessors say, and the Minister also mentioned in his response, that the cost of crime for the companies is approximately 100 billion per year or more in direct costs. And as if that were not bad enough, the crime against companies means that investments and new ventures are withheld, which means that the societal cost of the crimes in practice becomes even greater in the form of lost growth.
Madam Speaker! I am convinced that both the Minister and I believe that society must stand strong against system-threatening crime. The damage suffered by crime victims, whether it concerns individual individuals, our welfare systems, or the companies I am now addressing, gives reason to act very forcefully. But in a situation where Sweden's growth continues to be at the bottom of the EU, the recession is biting in, inflation tends to turn upwards again, and not least, unemployment is increasing, there are further strong motives to do more to curb the crime that hits our companies.
I want to have a discussion with the Minister today about what the government concretely intends to do to curb crime against serious Swedish companies. Has the government found any new approach to this? How are we to protect the serious companies?
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to Ingela Nylund Watz for the opportunity to discuss this extremely pressing issue today!
There is no doubt whatsoever that serious Swedish entrepreneurs feel great concern about crime, and they do so on good grounds. They are exposed to threats from organized crime, which jeopardizes both the safety and security of the entrepreneurs and their employees. It also threatens the companies' long-term survival and opportunities to operate in a market that is not distorted by various criminal actors who seize market shares in an improper manner.
When I say that we must do three things simultaneously to tackle organized crime – strike against the gross violence, i.e., shootings and explosions, break the recruitment of children and young people into criminal networks, and choke the criminal economy – it is an expression of the insight that we will not tackle the most brutal expression of organized crime, i.e., the gross violence, if we do not, in the long term, choke the criminal economy, which drives organized crime.
Organized crime has, in a historical perspective, primarily created large crime profits through narcotics sales. It is still a very large source of income for the criminal networks, but it is a reality that economic crime has overtaken narcotics as the main source of income for the criminal gangs. It affects many parts of our society: the taxpayers and the welfare systems, but also serious private entrepreneurs who themselves are exposed to crime and who see the competition distorted due to various criminal actors who do not act in an honest manner.
I completely agree that another, broader societal cost concerns Sweden's long-term competitiveness. Our opportunities to grow as a society are built to a very high degree on the conditions for our entrepreneurs and for our business sector to grow and strengthen its competitiveness, even in other countries and continents. We know that crime today is one of Sweden's growing disadvantages in that context. That is what motivates the historical shift in policy that is occurring now. Between 2012 and 2022, the number of fatal shootings in Sweden tripled. The criminal economy grew to astronomical levels of 100–150 billion. All of this we are now reversing, and we are trying to do so as systematically as possible.
Ingela Nylund Watz highlighted an aspect that I think is important, and that is the entrepreneur's propensity to report crimes. I believe one can find figures showing that the number of crimes that entrepreneurs have reported has gone down in some cases. In that, one could at adventure read that crime or vulnerability to crime has gone down. I think there is very little support for that. It is a stronger hypothesis that far too many entrepreneurs do not experience that the justice system responds sufficiently powerfully when crimes are reported.
I want to highlight that we gave a specific mandate to the new police commissioner to ensure that reports are taken seriously and that someone answers the phone when business owners and other crime victims call. It is a completely crucial issue, not only to be able to solve crimes and prevent and deter crime, but also to preserve the trust of business owners and citizens in the justice system.
Ingela Nylund Watz (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for a continued discussion on these incredibly important issues for Sweden's competitiveness and future growth!
According to Svenskt Näringsliv's crime barometer 2024, half of the companies affected have not reported crimes because they lack confidence that the police will do anything. That is bad. That is what we agree on.
From the survey by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in Uppsala, which I referred to in my first post, it also appears that two out of three companies consider that Sweden is poor or even very poor at detecting and prosecuting economic crime and that Sweden is poorly equipped against the criminal economy. It is truly both unfortunate and bad that the Swedish companies – the ones I can refer to are Stockholm companies – have such little confidence that society will be there when one is subjected to crime.
Just as the Minister is pointing out, organized crime is a tree with several branches. Now, more and more of the activity is white, completely visible and legal. Other branches, on the other hand, are completely light-shy. This naturally requires new approaches. It requires international cooperation, not least with Europol.
I completely agree with the Minister that a fundamental prerequisite for addressing this is to follow the money. That is something we are in complete agreement on. The thieves, the fraudsters, the tax evaders, and the extortionists are often parts of one and the same criminal structure. Not least, Europol has also pointed out the fact that the criminals work across borders in several countries.
I return to the companies' view on how the state can stand by them when they feel anxiety or are subjected to crime. I think there is reason to reflect on whether the approaches we have chosen so far, and which we have agreed upon, have been sufficient to take the reality and anxiety of serious companies seriously. I do not doubt the Minister for Justice's ambitions when it comes to breaking down serious organized crime in Sweden. I just want to present an argument about whether we have been good enough at considering the entrepreneurs' perspective.
We know, not least in our large cities, what reality looks like when illegal competition strikes, especially in certain industries. I believe that the Minister for Justice is well aware of which industries are particularly vulnerable. It is about the widespread crime in working life, tax evasion, VAT fraud, and everything that makes the serious companies risk collapsing and not being able to cope with the competitive conditions.
What I am looking for is a reasoning on how we can collectively ensure that the spotlight is directed towards the serious entrepreneurs and their conditions, and seek and find approaches that solve the problems they see. It is about both the quantity of crimes, which many highlight, and the threat from organized crime.
I believe that we can do a good job together, if the will is there. We have a number of proposals, which I intend to return to.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! It is my firm opinion that the entrepreneurs are right. Sweden has not been equipped to meet the reality we now find ourselves in. Now we are undertaking many important measures and making many important decisions regarding legislation intended to break old patterns.
It would naturally have been immensely better if it had been in place already 10–15 years ago. Then we would not have had to devote ourselves to strangling the criminal economy but could have curbed its growth at a much earlier stage.
Many of the things we are doing now are aimed at precisely breaking old patterns. It is positive that the Social Democrats have largely voted for these proposals. However, it has not been completely unanimous in the Riksdag. A part of your government base has not been on board with the measures. We may have to work to get everyone on board moving forward.
Let me highlight some important parts. The possibility of using secret coercive measures preventively is an incredibly central tool to be able to prevent and stop organized crime. When we worked on this, it was important to me that it was designed in such a way that it can also be directed towards economic crime, not "just" the shootings, the bombings, and the gross violence. It also needs, with full force, to be able to be directed towards organized economic crime. This we now have in place.
Another important part is the independent forfeiture. Now there is an opportunity to move the positions so offensively that we can seize the assets, in connection with breaking patterns. There is a difficulty with pursuing this through traditional prosecution and convicting the criminals for criminal liability, but now we have found other ways to go straight for the money. The independent forfeiture is a pattern-breaking measure. I dare to assert that the rest of Europe is now looking at Sweden for inspiration. They wonder if one can really work so offensively with criminal economy. Yes, you can, we say in Sweden.
A third part that is completely central is truly a paradigm shift in the area. We are now removing secrecy barriers to achieve effective information sharing. It is a 180-degree turn if we look at how we in Sweden have traditionally handled these issues. We do this in three steps.
We have already seen a major change in place aimed at fraud with public funds, such as crime in the labor market and incorrect payments. This was implemented this summer. There is now an obligation for different actors to share information with one another to streamline the work.
On April 1, step two will come, which entails a further obligation for different actors to share information not only in relation to work-life crime and fraud but also generally speaking when it comes to preventing and deterring crime in the area.
Then there also comes a third step where we introduce a general confidentiality-breaking rule that shall apply to all actors in all situations. If there is a need to share information to prevent and stop crime, not least organized economic crime, such an opportunity shall exist. It is a systemic shift that is super important.
We are also looking at other measures and have received proposals, which we are processing, regarding sharpening the possibilities to issue business bans against unscrupulous actors. I have myself highlighted the importance of looking at not only the criminal justice system but also other systems. Corporate fines and economic sanctions against unscrupulous entrepreneurs can potentially be very powerful. I mentioned the financial intelligence center, which is now being established so that we can exert better pressure against various actors within the financial sector.
At the EU level, it is very much about ensuring all of this, but also across borders. In that regard, we have a particular focus on establishing legal ways for the police in the different member states and Europol, which is an important player, to share information in an effective manner.
Ingela Nylund Watz (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank you for a good discussion on important issues.
I have no major objections to the measures that the Minister points out here. Most of it is good, even if there is one detail or another that we Social Democrats would like to tweak a little more or a little less. That may be done.
What I am looking for is that companies are calling for the state to more clearly address the companies' specific problems, as they are very complex. This applies in particular to companies in the Stockholm and Uppsala regions, which I have been most impressed by over the last few months. This is about both everyday crimes, such as vandalism, smashed windows and thefts, and about everything that has to do with the criminal economy and organized crime.
In many passages, it is one and the same "body" even if it takes slightly different forms. Property damage and smashed windows perhaps are more about desperate attempts to get money to buy drugs. But at the other end of the chain, there might be some foreign gang leader organizing an entire network of different branches of crime.
What I am looking for is to find out if the government has tried to find an approach that makes the companies feel more seen in this work. They report in interviews and surveys that they no longer even want to report crimes, because they experience that the police do not act and that nothing happens.
Given how Sweden's growth situation looks – we are at the bottom of Europe – I believe we need to do everything we can so that companies, just as we individuals, feel that the state is there and steps up when they need it.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I thank Ingela Nylund Watz once again for the opportunity to discuss this important issue today.
I listened for a long time for a new proposal from Ingela Nylund Watz, but I listened in vain. I find myself, however, in the position of being the Minister for Justice, and it is reasonable that Members of Parliament ask questions about what measures the government intends to take to break patterns.
I gladly acknowledge the description of reality that is being presented. On the one hand, it is about meeting entrepreneurs in what we sometimes modestly call volume crime or everyday crime. On the other hand, it is about meeting entrepreneurship in terms of organized crime and the broader criminal economy.
Let me begin with the gang crimes. The police have made a fantastic journey with the clearance of crimes that are not gang crimes, that is to say, the very most serious crimes. For example, the clearance rate over two years has risen from under 20 percent to over 70 percent when it comes to fatal shootings. These are fantastic advances in relation to organized crime.
We see a positive movement in volume crime, but it is not at all as powerful. Therefore, it has been important for me and the government to give the new police commissioner a very explicit mandate, which means that the large shift that is now occurring, for example regarding the clearing up of organized crime, must also be made in the citizen-proximate or, as today's topic is, the business-proximate crime, the crime that entrepreneurs experience in their everyday lives.
We have pointed out that the positions for local police presence must be moved forward when it comes to the investigations and improving the service. A business owner must know that the police respond when one calls. Progress is being made in all these parts, and I look forward to coming back and reporting on it.
Everything that I have accounted for and that we have spoken about today regarding organized crime is such that it has all the prerequisites to put the entrepreneurs and thus Swedish growth and competitiveness in a better position if we look forward. More will need to be done, and I will gladly return to that in the future.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.