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CRIME

Gambling baron faces new tax crime charges

One of Sweden's most notorious gangsters, currently on trial for instigating murder, was indicted on Thursday on charges of financial crimes and illicit gambling.

Published: 14 August 2008 14:07 CEST

55-year-old Rade Kotur, often referred to in the Swedish press as “Spelkungen” (The Gambling King), is already on trial for allegedly instigating murder and attempted murder in what is set to be one Sweden’s most watched gangster trials.

According to these latest charges, the suspect’s gambling business had a turnover of at least 463 million kronor ($74 million) between January 1st 2005 and November 13th 2007.

Kotur is being charged with grievous tax crimes and false accounting in an alleged attempt to shield from Sweden’s tax authorities hundreds of millions of kronor generated from his gaming operations.

According to Erica Sommerfors, chief prosecutor at the Swedish National Economic Crimes Bureau, the charges of illegal gambling against Kotor are the biggest ever in Sweden.

“As far as I know, this is the biggest case for this type of crime”, she told the TT news agency.

According to the prosecutor, the suspect is highly responsible for the financial crimes.

“There is no doubt that he is the boss pulling all the strings,” she told TT.

He is already on trial for his suspected involvement in the killing of Ratko Djokic, who was gunned down by two men in dark clothing outside a boxing club in the south Stockholm suburb of Skärholmen in May 2003.

Djokic, known as The Godfather, operated a rival gambling operation at the time. His daughter was also married to 39-year-old Milan Sevo, who police consider to be the king of the Serbian underworld in Sweden.

Sevo fled to Serbia in 2004 and authorities have been unsuccessful in their attempts to locate him for their case against Kotur.

A 35-year-old hit man, Nenad Misovic, was sentenced to life in prison for Djokic’s murder. He too is set to be tried in Gothenburg District Court for having attempted to murder another man in September 2002 on orders from Kotur.

Misovic is one of the prosecution’s key witnesses in its case against Kotur.

The victim of the murder attempt, now 44-years-old, managed to escape from the attack, which took place in the Stockholm suburb of Fisksätra, and is also scheduled to testify.

According to Dagens Nyheter, police theorize that Kotur ordered the killing because the 44-year-old had wanted to start his own gaming operation and Kotur saw the move as a threat to his own gaming empire.

Kotur was arrested in Britain in November last year, following a massive raid on his suspected illegal gambling operations, in which 400 slot machines were confiscated from 150 different locations throughout the country.

The 44-year-old victim failed to appear in court Monday morning as the prosecution presented its case because, according to the prosecutor, he wants to avoid the limelight.

Earlier, prosecutor Krister Petersson explained for the Expressen newspaper that he faces several challenges in convincing many key witnesses to testify in the case.

“People who are deeply entrenched in the gangster world refuse to testify,” he told Expressen.

“Witnesses who come forward change or withdraw their testimony.”

Originally from the former Yugoslavia, Kotur came to Sweden in the 1970s.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Kotur built up the RK Company, which operated automated poker and slot machines in pizzerias and convenience stores throughout Sweden.

According to an investigation by the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper in 2005, RK Company controlled several thousand gaming machines which made up a large part of Sweden’s estimated 5 billion kronor ($820 million) illegal gaming market.

Kotur’s trial for instigated and attempted murders is expected to last until October.

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POLITICS

‘Very little debate’ on consequences of Sweden’s crime and migration clampdown

Sweden’s political leaders are putting the population’s well-being at risk by moving the country in a more authoritarian direction, according to a recent report.

Published: 29 April 2024 08:56 CEST
'Very little debate' on consequences of Sweden's crime and migration clampdown

The Liberties Rule of Law report shows Sweden backsliding across more areas than any other of the 19 European Union member states monitored, fuelling concerns that the country risks breaching its international human rights obligations, the report says.

“We’ve seen this regression in other countries for a number of years, such as Poland and Hungary, but now we see it also in countries like Sweden,” says John Stauffer, legal director of the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders, which co-authored the Swedish section of the report.

The report, compiled by independent civil liberties groups, examines six common challenges facing European Union member states.

Sweden is shown to be regressing in five of these areas: the justice system, media environment, checks and balances, enabling framework for civil society and systemic human rights issues.

The only area where Sweden has not regressed since 2022 is in its anti-corruption framework, where there has been no movement in either a positive or negative direction.

Source: Liberties Rule of Law report

As politicians scramble to combat an escalation in gang crime, laws are being rushed through with too little consideration for basic rights, according to Civil Rights Defenders.

Stauffer cites Sweden’s new stop-and-search zones as a case in point. From April 25th, police in Sweden can temporarily declare any area a “security zone” if there is deemed to be a risk of shootings or explosive attacks stemming from gang conflicts.

Once an area has received this designation, police will be able to search people and cars in the area without any concrete suspicion.

“This is definitely a piece of legislation where we see that it’s problematic from a human rights perspective,” says Stauffer, adding that it “will result in ethnic profiling and discrimination”.

Civil Rights Defenders sought to prevent the new law and will try to challenge it in the courts once it comes into force, Stauffer tells The Local in an interview for the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast. 

He also notes that victims of racial discrimination at the hands of the Swedish authorities had very little chance of getting a fair hearing as actions by the police or judiciary are “not even covered by the Discrimination Act”.

READ ALSO: ‘Civil rights groups in Sweden can fight this government’s repressive proposals’

Stauffer also expresses concerns that an ongoing migration clampdown risks splitting Sweden into a sort of A and B team, where “the government limits access to rights based on your legal basis for being in the country”.

The report says the government’s migration policies take a “divisive ‘us vs them’ approach, which threatens to increase rather than reduce existing social inequalities and exclude certain groups from becoming part of society”.

Proposals such as the introduction of a requirement for civil servants to report undocumented migrants to the authorities would increase societal mistrust and ultimately weaken the rule of law in Sweden, the report says.

The lack of opposition to the kind of surveillance measures that might previously have sparked an outcry is a major concern, says Stauffer.

Politicians’ consistent depiction of Sweden as a country in crisis “affects the public and creates support for these harsh measures”, says Stauffer. “And there is very little talk and debate about the negative consequences.”

Hear John Stauffer from Civil Rights Defender discuss the Liberties Rule of Law report in the The Local’s Sweden in Focus Extra podcast for Membership+ subscribers.

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