What I learned from my meeting with an organized crime figure

A couple of years ago I was walking over Stureplan in Stockholm when I heard somebody yelling my name, I turned around and there was the little brother to one of my former childhood school friends who came to Sweden as a refugee in the 90s.

He was tall, big and actually looked like a real crime figure. I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t recognize him, so I stopped and said hello and talked for a couple of minutes. He was sitting outside a restaurant at the table with a well-known sport profile, known to have had a history of drug abuse. 

What chocked me was how open he was (he didn’t know what I worked with), telling me all about his apartment that he had paid without taking any loan, in the center of Stockholm, and that he had several of companies both in Sweden and Spain, however, none of the Swedish or Spanish companies were registered on him, as he had a “friend” that worked as a front man for the companies.

When he heard that I now lived in Oslo in Norway his reaction was enthusiastic to say the least, he said that he was in Oslo several times a year to deposit and withdraw cash (NOK) as he didn’t wanted to draw attention to himself in Sweden by using SEK or EUR there. He also said that he had a trusted bank contact in a specific big Norwegian bank that facilitated these withdrawals and deposits.

First I thought this story was starting to get a little bit out of hand, however I stood there listening, and when he took up his mobile phone and showed me a Norwegian name with a Norwegian mobile phone number he really got my attention (if I only had numeric memory). Afterwards he asked what I was working with, I couldn’t tell him the full truth, so I only said "consulting".

A short period after, from pure curiosity, I just had to have a look at his Facebook profile, I wasn’t Facebook-friend with him but his profile was fully open and there was pictures and videos of him driving several different luxury cars, one Ferrari, one Bentley, living in luxury houses and apartments with sea views, having expensive watches.

So, I did a search in different company registry and databases in Spain, I couldn’t find anything. In Sweden I couldn’t find him either, he was almost a ghost except for his FB-profile. However, several of his siblings had businesses in Sweden.

A couple of years later I meet another childhood friend that confirmed that the person I meet was in fact a real organized crime figure in Sweden operating from both Sweden and Spain and that one should be very careful with him. 

Without knowing more about his source of wealth or funds, expect from what I could find (or not) by looking in open sources, one can of course imagine where his source of wealth and funds comes from.

Now think of the scenario that he was telling me; he had both Swedish and Spanish companies and was using a front man.

Most likely he had registered these companies within a lower risk industry, and then by using a front man with no criminal past, his companies that he was in indirect control of, would without any issues be onboarded with any financial institution without triggering any high-risk indicators that would increase the risk score to high-risk so that the company would be subject of enhanced customer due diligence.

He could then for a very long time use this company and other similar companies in same and different countries where he operates in, and perform transactions between the Nordics and Spain without detection as long as he keeps below certain thresholds and don’t trigger certain risk indicators.

I assume that his different companies are customers of both Swedish, Norwegian and Spanish financial institutions, and as long as he keeps below some certain threshold his operations will most likely continue for a long time without detection.

Staying ahead of criminals is a challange, however understanding their potential adjustment and come to the realization that they could use potential insiders, we also need to think like them, we need to test our systems on scenarios and indicators that normally would´nt raise any flags and I highly recommend to perform analysis on different branches of the organisation to identify any potential red flags that could also be linked to insiders.