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Sex doll and 10,000 cacti: The bizarre things sold by Sweden’s bailiffs

A glance at what Sweden's debt collection agency has seized and auctioned off over the years reveals that although most of it is fairly run-of-the-mill, there are some items that stick out.

Published: 17 September 2024 12:04 CEST
Sex doll and 10,000 cacti: The bizarre things sold by Sweden's bailiffs
File photo of cacti (not the ones mentioned in the article). Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

If a person fails to pay their bill, or owe a victim damages as part of a criminal case, the Swedish Enforcement Agency can as a last resort sell off their assets to settle the debt.

They do so by auctioning off the assets and normally, we’re not talking about anything out of the ordinary: cars, furniture, various other gadgets or homes in extreme cases.

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But once in a while, more unique items crop up.

A life-size fantasy sex doll

Bianca, according to the producer Ultimate Fantasy Dolls, has intricate hazel eyes, strawberry-blonde hair, supple lips and… we’ll stop it right there. She’s also up for sale in an ongoing auction by the Swedish Enforcement Agency, which has grabbed headlines in Sweden after the Expressen tabloid covered the story this week.

The asking price is 15,000 kronor but it will be sold to the highest bidder. The auction ends on Thursday and at the time of publication the highest bid was 7,200 kronor.

Bianca comes with a wig, underwear, user guide and has, thank goodness, never been used.

The Enforcement Agency stressed to Swedish media that it doesn’t make any moral judgment about the items it auctions off to collect debts. The only requirements are that they should be legal to sell and that they should be worth at least 1,000 kronor.

That means a sex doll is not the only peculiar thing the agency has had to sell…

Nineteen bottles of nitrous oxide

Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas (lustgas), is commonly used when giving birth, but has seen increasing popularity as a party drug. Despite warnings by doctors that it could have severe health effects if used the wrong way, it’s possible to buy the gas online.

Last year, it was also possible to buy it via the Enforcement Agency’s auction, with 19 bottles of the gas put up for sale online, each containing 640 grams per bottle – showing again that the agency really doesn’t have a choice when it comes to deciding what’s appropriate to sell, as long as it’s legal and fetches at least 1,000 kronor.

Ten thousand cacti

Near a town called Grästorp, north-east of Gothenburg, stood a greenhouse. In that greenhouse stood up to 10,000 cacti and a presumably perplexed debt collector.

The plants, ranging from seedlings to two-metre high cacti, were eventually snapped up by two friends in Malmö, including a former doctor who had left medicine to focus on cacti, according to public broadcaster SVT which couldn’t resist covering the story.

They paid over 30,000 kronor for the plants last year and set up a cactus exhibition in Malmö, which is still available to visit online, as well as via their Instagram page.

A ring linked to gang crime

A ring that used to belong to a person within the criminal Foxtrot network, carrying the fox symbol associated with the gang, was controversially auctioned off earlier this year.

The agency described it as “unpleasant” but reiterated that it’s their job to sell items that can be used to collect debts, and are not allowed to question the propriety.

The ring was originally sold for 66,500 kronor, but the buyer never paid up. When the Enforcement Agency failed to find someone willing to buy the gang crime merch, it eventually decided to sell it to a purchaser who was to melt the gold, or as the agency’s national coordinator against crime told TV4: “like destroying the ring of Frodo”.

A wind farm

In 2016, three wind turbines on the Peuravaara hill in Kiruna, Sweden’s northernmost municipality, were sold to a buyer for 2.1 million kronor. The turbines were previously owned by a foreign company and the Enforcement Agency received six bids in total.

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MONEY

How will Sweden’s new budget affect foreign residents?

The Swedish government will present its autumn budget on September 19th, but how will the proposals we know about so far, like measures to attract foreign talent and money for Swedish classes, affect foreigners?

Published: 17 September 2024 13:31 CEST
How will Sweden's new budget affect foreign residents?

Measures to attract foreign talent

The budget will include a range of reforms with the aim of improving the Swedish economy and Swedish competitiveness, with special emphasis on attracting talent and promoting investment in the country.

This, among other things, includes 5 million kronor to Visit Sweden in order to promote Swedish tourism, 8 million kronor on attracting foreign talent in 2025, and 16 million kronor to Business Sweden in order to identify and contribute to solving obstacles to investment for Swedish companies and foreign companies in Sweden, as well as attracting strategic investment.

The government will also set aside 10 million kronor in 2025 for an international investment conference, in order to position Sweden as an attractive destination for foreign investment.

Money towards integration and Swedish classes

The government also plans to spend 196 million kronor on increased integration efforts, including three-year intensive courses for children who do not speak any Swedish at home and extra money for after-school fritids clubs to provide Swedish classes for children with foreign backgrounds.

Around 31 million kronor would go towards assisting integration for foreigners who are stay-at-home parents, especially women, in order to assist them in finding work. This would include language lessons, as well as study and career advice for refugees in particular, as well as other women born abroad.

Another 4 million kronor of the 196 million kronor total would go towards mapping foreigners’ Swedish skills – reading, writing and listening – in order to understand which integration measures would be useful.

Finally, 40 million kronor would go towards language courses for certain key workers, like staff in elderly care homes and preschools, a policy which was originally introduced by the former government in 2021. This would last until 2026.

Tax-free investment savings accounts

ISKs (Investment Savings Accounts) were introduced in 2012 as a way for people in Sweden to easily invest in shares and funds. An estimated 3.5 million people in Sweden have an ISK, with 75 percent of these accounts having a balance of 300,000 kronor or less.

Currently, they’re not subject to capital gains tax, but they are instead taxed at a fixed rate – known as schablonsskatt – an annual rate paid on the entire value of the sum held.

Under the new proposal, tax on ISKs, as well as KFs, another type of investment savings account taxed in the same way, would be scrapped for any accounts with a balance of less than 150,000 kronor from next year, rising to 300,000 in 2026. 

For foreigners living and working in Sweden, this will make saving in equities, bonds, and funds while resident in Sweden significantly more attractive.

As the new Pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP) is also included, anyone living in Sweden can even keep their tax-free savings accounts when moving to another EU country – even if they’re not an EU citizen.

Tax cuts

Sweden’s government has announced plans to increase jobbskatteavdraget or employment tax credit, a rebate given to everyone who has a job.

If you have a job in Sweden and do not depend on benefits for your income, you qualify for the tax credit, which was brought in in 2007 to ensure that people would always be better off in work than on benefits.

As a percentage of income, those on the lowest salaries get the biggest tax reduction, with the maximum tax reduction next year set at 10,633 kronor. 

You can see a breakdown of how people in different income brackets will be affected by the increase in this article.

People on the median salary of 462,000 kronor per year (38,500 kronor a month) will see their tax bill shrink by 3,671 kronor.

The reduction will be applied automatically and is available to everyone who works and does not receive benefits, whether you’re a Swedish citizen or not.

Pensioners won’t be left out either – they’ll see tax cuts equivalent to the employment tax credit, to ensure they’re not worse off than people in work.

Plans to curb migration

The government has also announced plans to allocate over 4.4 billion kronor to restricting migration over the next three years: 513 million in 2025, rising to 2.5 billion in 2026 and 1.35 billion in 2027.

A large share of this – 1.4 billion in 2026 – will go towards encouraging migrants to return home voluntarily, a scheme which is only available to refugees, quota refugees, people in need of subsidiary protection on the grounds of exceptionally distressing circumstances, or family of these groups.

The rest of the funds will go towards reducing fraud and misuse of the system and an increase in checks on foreigners in the country, the government has said.

Funds to combat unemployment

Sweden’s unemployment rate is currently at its highest level in ten years, not counting the pandemic. The government is therefore planning a package of budget measures to try and combat this, including 900 million kronor to regional vocational training for adults – around 11,000 more study places. 

The measures also include raising the grant for supervisors offering apprenticeship training, as well as 79 million kronor for the Public Employment Agency to support people who have been out of work for a long time.

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