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Operation Spring: How Swedish authorities took out Sweden's biggest narco bank
Journal of Financial Compliance,
6
(4),
346-356
(2023)
Abstract
This paper is a case study of a multi-agency investigation of a currency exchange office that served as a bank for organised crime. The paper describes how the investigation was carried out, with inter-agency cooperation being a key factor in its success. The purpose of the paper is to inspire other law enforcement agencies to initiate this type of investigation, as exchange offices and hawala brokers act as facilitators for organised crime to transfer their criminal profits into new crimes, making it extremely important to combat them. The paper also highlights the need for supervisory authorities to be more effective in controlling these types of business activities as it is naïve to think that only criminal investigations will stop them. To achieve this, new legislation and better cooperation between authorities are needed.
Keywords: organised crime; hawala; money laundering; Sweden; the Financial Supervisory Authority
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Magnus Sohlén is Head of unit, Action Groups Section, Investigations Division, Stockholm Region, Swedish Police Authority. Mr Sohlén is a senior Detective Inspector with over 30 years of service. He has worked in combating organised crime since 2004. Since 2016, he has been assigned to one of the police authority's specially designated sections, which, together with cooperating authorities, are intended to jointly combat organised crime by means of crime prevention, administrative measures, enforcement measures, prosecution and recovery of criminal profits. The focus is on combating organised crime, which is threatening to society, and against organised crime in the local community. Magnus Sohlén has led several major investigations where various money laundering schemes have been used to hide criminal profits from the authorities. He was head of the investigation in Operation Spring, the operation that took down Sweden's biggest narco bank.
