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Da Costa murder probe officially laid to rest

Prosecutors have officially suspended the investigation into the murder of Catrine da Costa, who was found dismembered in 1984. The case is one of the modern famous cases in modern Swedish legal history.

Published: 11 July 2009 09:37 CEST

Da Costa murder probe officially laid to rest

The decision was made on 1 July, after more than 25 years have passed since the crime was committed.

District attorney Staffan Bergman said the statue of limitations on the case has expired since everything points to the fact that da Costa died in June 1984.

She was last seen on June 10th of the same year, when a man let her out of a car at Kungsträdgården in central Stockholm. On July 18th, a first bag with da Costa’s bodyparts was found at Karlbergs beach in Solna, and additional bodyparts were found on August 7th. At the scene, strands of hair were found on a blue towel beside a bag. But no one knows when the bag was put there.

The investigation of da Costa’s death became one of the most famous cases in modern Swedish legal history. A pathologist and a general practicioner were found guilty of murder by Stockholm district court in 1988, but the doctors were freed after a retrial.

The court wrote that the doctors were connected to her dismemberment, but that the crime was barred from prosecution under the statute of limitations. They have never stood trial, but lost their licences to practice medicine in 1991.

Bergman told Svenska Dagbladet newspaper that da Costa theoretically could have fallen and dismembered herself and that the murder hypothesis is built upon circumstantial evidence.

“On the other hand, there is quite a bit that points to murder. I haven’t heard of anyone being dismembered after a natural death,” he said.

Bergman described the case as “unique” with “a lot of special circumstances”. He also called it “a pity” for the legal system that no one was convicted and above all “tragic for her relatives to never know what happened.”

In a claim that will go before the Attunda district court in November, both doctors, who were acquited for the murder, are requesting 35 million kronor in damages from the Swedish state on the grounds that their lives were destroyed by the charges against them.

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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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