Operation Candy: property executive arrested; Kaliber reports weapons offer to Ismail Abdo
Swedish police reported a new arrest on 22 October over suspected large-scale money laundering in Candy. Earlier, Sveriges Radio linked an alleged key figure to an offer of twelve weapons to Ismail Abdo.
The new suspect held a senior position at a property company. Sweden’s economic crime authority, Ekobrottsmyndigheten, alleges that he received money and other assets from businesses themselves used for laundering. Homes, bank funds and cash worth almost twenty million Swedish kronor were secured in the operation. Prosecutors requested his remand in custody.
The police statement of 22 October put the number of people deprived of liberty in the operation at 32, including six by Ekobrottsmyndigheten. Three people around Borås had also been arrested the previous week on suspicion of aggravated money laundering. Before the remand hearing scheduled that day, ten people were on remand across the Candy investigations.
Kaliber, Sveriges Radio’s investigative programme, reported on 4 October that chats showed close contact between Ismail Abdo and a man in his forties previously convicted of drug smuggling. The broadcaster said the man offered Abdo twelve weapons after Abdo described his mother’s murder; Abdo wrote that he wanted them all. Police operation chief Tomas Stakeberg Jansson confirmed to the broadcaster that the man was being investigated as a key figure and that he knew of the information in the chats.
On 3 June, Swedish police had announced fourteen new arrests in Sweden and one in the Netherlands, bringing the total at that point to 27. The suspicions concerned exceptionally serious drug trafficking and large-scale money laundering linked to several criminal groups. Suspects previously arrested in Spain had been surrendered to Sweden. Some earlier detainees had been released but remained suspects, according to that announcement.
The June announcement also recorded around seventy searches and assets worth more than seventy million Swedish kronor seized. These included cars, boats, cash, jewellery and expensive watches; property was also frozen. Swedish services work with foreign police forces, Europol and Eurojust in Candy.
