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CRIME

Man in hiding after wife’s ‘antifreeze cocktail’

A Swedish man has gone into hiding in Norway after claiming that his wife tried to kill him by serving him antifreeze in a glass of Coca-Cola.

Published: 13 December 2011 11:28 CET
Man in hiding after wife's 'antifreeze cocktail'

”I never sleep more than one night anywhere. I am scared out of my wits,” ‘Anders’ told daily Aftonbladet on Monday.

According to the paper, Anders and his 33-year-old wife got married in January and are expecting their first child in February.

But instead of getting ready for the new arrival, Anders is hiding from his wife in Norway, claiming that she has tried to kill him by serving him glycol in a glass of Coke and leaving him to die.

”She left me there in a helpless condition,” said Anders to Aftonbladet.

The couple had planned to move to Norway together after the wedding but somehow the plans fell through.

Since then Anders has lived with the woman and her children on and off on a farm near Linköping, in southern Sweden.

According to his friends, he has long wanted to get a divorce.

At the end of November, Anders suddenly fell ill with what appeared to be symptoms of poisoning.

”I told the police that I was given a glass of Coke and then I was suddenly dead drunk and fell down some stairs,” said Anders.

After feeling worse he went to bed.

”Then she said ‘Leave, you can’t die here in the house’,” he told Aftonbladet.

After picking up her kids, the 33-year-old woman allegedly took Anders’ mobile phone form him and left the house.

However, he managed to locate the phone and alert the police, who confirmed that there was glycol in the glass from which Anders had sipped.

The 33-year-old woman, who denies the allegations, was quickly remanded into custody but released after about a week, as police claimed that the suspicions against her where somewhat weaker than initially believed.

According to Anders, the police are not treating the matter as seriously as they should because he is in Norway.

”They say that it’s her word against mine. But how can that be with the injuries I have sustained,” he said.

Anders told Aftonbladet on Tuesday that he has now given police access to his medical records, adding that previous incidents, which made no sense at the time, can now be seen in a different light.

Eating a yoghurt, given to him by his wife, earlier in the year, he went funny, couldn’t speak and started stumbling.

Around the same time tablets had started go missing from his prescribed medicine to combat depression.

According to Anders, despite having to seek medical advice at the time, it wasn’t until the incident in November that he started to put two and two together.

According to the wife’s lawyer, Thomas Wasteson, she is adamant that she is innocent.

”She denies having anything to do with this,” he told Aftonbladet.

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POLICE

Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

A new report in Dagens Nyheter has revealed over 514 suspected leaks of sensitive information from at least 30 members of the police force to criminals since 2018. Here's what we know so far.

Published: 30 April 2024 12:28 CEST
Updated: 30 April 2024 15:45 CEST
Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

What’s happened?

According to an investigative report by newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), multiple gang members have infiltrated the police force by, for example, dating police employees, or using family connections to gain access to sensitive information about ongoing cases.

The first article in DN’s series focuses on a woman the newspaper calls Elin, who met a man, Jonas (not his real name), on a dating app when she had one year left of her police education. She falls in love, but his only goal with the relationship is to get a source within the police force which he can use for access to secret information.

Over the course of four years until she was caught, she made multiple illegal searches in the police register for Jonas, his associates and enemies, as well as providing him with information on ongoing investigations against him.

Other cases investigated by the newspaper include a border guard who sold classified information to gangs, a police officer who leaked information to what DN describes as “one of Sweden’s most notorious criminals” and an investigator who was dating a man she was investigating, who she shared screenshots of sensitive information with.

In another case, the police received a tip-off that information was being leaked to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. It was discovered that a group of five alarm operators had made an unusually high number of searches for members of the Hells Angels, who were later discovered to have connections with the gang that they had lied about during their background checks.

What have the consequences of these leaks been?

In some cases, the leaks preceded revenge attacks on enemies of the gang member involved in the relationship. In other cases, the gang members’ enemies disappeared or were murdered.

Some of the people from the police force involved in the leaks were sentenced to fines for illegal data access or breaches of professional secrecy, while the evidence against others was not sufficient to prosecute. 

At least 30 employees had for different reasons been considered “security risks” and either resigned or were forced to quit, the newspaper reported, with over 514 suspected leaks taking place from police to criminals since 2018.

How do criminals find police officers?

According to DN, they look for things that can be used as blackmail, like police officers who buy drugs, or set “honey traps”, like the one used against Elin, where they meet police officers or students on dating apps and start a relationship.

“You take Tinder, for example, and set your search radius so the police school is in the centre. When you get a match, it’s easy to check if it’s a student, through class lists or how they present themselves on social media. They’re proud of their line of work,” Jonas told DN.

They might also use their family connections to put pressure on relatives who work in the police force.

Why is this important?

It’s important because Sweden has seen a rise in gang-related violence in recent years, with a surge in shootings and bombings as gangs fight for control over different drug markets.

Swedes also have a high level of trust in the police force – 72 percent according to a 2024 study by Medieakademin, topping the list of state authorities, with a higher level of trust than universities, healthcare, the courts and even the Swedish church. This was five percent higher than in 2023.

Although the vast majority of police officers do not leak information to criminal networks, Sweden does not have a history of organised crime infiltrating the police force, so officials are keeping a close eye on these leaks to make sure they don’t become more common.

On April 29th, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told TT newswire that the leaks were “very serious”, potentially putting trust in the police force at risk.

“There are many great risks and one is that trust in police declines, that people get the idea that mafia-like methods are used to infiltrate law enforcement,” he said, before adding that he was unable to say whether it constituted a threat to national security or not purely based on the initial DN article.

“But the mere suspicion of these types of connections are damaging,” he told the newswire.

What happens now?

Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer told DN that he planned to call a meeting with police leadership about the reports, which he described as “extremely serious”.

“[At that meeting] we will consider the need for further measures,” he said.

“Leaking sensitive information to criminals is against the law and can have very damaging consequences for the work of the police force,” Strömmer told DN, adding that it could undermine trust in the police and “damage democracy”.

Last summer, the government increased the penalty for breaching professional secrecy, and a special investigator was tasked with looking at a potential reform of the rules on corruption and professional misconduct in February – the Crime Prevention Council is also involved in that investigation, where it has been asked to provide information on how gangs use government employees.

“Protecting the integrity of the justice system against infiltration and other security threats is a central part of the new national strategy against organised crime that the government decided on earlier this year, and it is given the highest priority in our assignments to the authorities,” Strömmer told the newspaper.

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