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Ten sentenced in major sex club scandal

Ten men, aged between 25 to 53 years old, have been sentenced for financial crimes in a major sex club scandal in Stockholm.

Published: 18 June 2008 14:53 CEST

All eight men have received different sentences. The longest sentence is for three years, while two men went free.

The three main perpetrators each received the maximum sentence of three years. Their crime is gross tax evasion and false accounting. All three were also banned from engaging in business for the next ten years.

One of the men is a 40-year-old former police officer who left the Stockholm County Police department two years ago.

The men ran two strip clubs in Stockholm and had a turnover of over 40 million kronor ($6.6 million).

Last summer suspicions surfaced when it emerged that the clubs’ owners were sending large sums of money to Estonia and the Netherlands, and then returning the laundered money back to Sweden.

The money was never declared to the tax authorities.

Nordic justice ministers meet tech giants on gangs using apps to hire 'child soldiers'

Denmark’s justice minister, Peter Hummelgaard, said in a press release that he hoped to use the meeting on Friday afternoon to discuss how to stop social media and messaging apps being used by gang criminals, who Danish police revealed earlier this year were using them to recruit so-called “child soldiers” to carry out gang killings.

“We have seen many examples of how the gangs are using social media and encrypted messaging services to plan serious crimes and recruit very young people to do their dirty work,” Hummelgaard said. “My Nordic colleagues and I agree that a common front is needed to get a grip on this problem.”

As well as recruitment, lists have been found spreading on social media detailing the payments on offer for various criminal services.

Hummelgaard said he would “insist that the tech giants live up to their responsibilities so that their platforms do not act as hotbeds for serious crimes” at the meeting, which will take place at a summit of Nordic justice ministers in Uppsala, Sweden.

In August, Hummelgaard held a meeting in Copenhagen with Sweden’s justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, at which the two agreed to work harder to tackle cross-border organised crime, which has seen a series of Swedish youth arrested in Denmark after being recruited to carry out hits in the country.

According to a press release from the Swedish justice ministry, the morning will be spent discussing how to combat the criminal economy and particularly organised crime in ports, with a press release from Finland’s justice ministry adding that the discussion would also touch on the “undue influence on judicial authorities” from organised crime groups.

The day will end with a round table discussion with Ronald S Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, on how anti-Semitism and hate crimes against Jews can be prevented and fought in the Nordic region.

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