Lawyer and notorious criminal arrested in extortion racket | Sweden

It was at 8 o’clock on Wednesday morning that the police made a coordinated effort and raided several addresses at the same time.

According to information, one of those arrested is a woman who previously had a central role in one of Sweden’s most high-profile criminal investigations.

At the same time, according to information, a man in his 30s who is a lawyer was arrested. During the day, the police received permission to search the man’s law office on Östermalm in Stockholm, in search of computers, telephones and other “electronic information carriers”. Searching a lawyer’s office is a sensitive action that requires special permission from the court, as it may compromise lawyer confidentiality.

Now they are both suspected of attempted extortion. According to information, the suspicions concern a tangle that previously attracted a lot of attention.

It was last fall that a police report was made that Joachim Kuylenstierna, founder and then CEO of the listed real estate company Fastator, was exposed to blackmail.

Demanded large sums

In threatening messages on Whatsapp, unknown perpetrators had then demanded sums in the hundreds of millions, with threats that he and several named business partners would be exposed to explosives if the money was not paid.

Early in the investigation, two men with connections to the Vårby network were detained on suspicion of involvement in the extortion. Since then, more have been added. A total of six people are now in custody in the investigation, in addition to the two who were arrested on Wednesday morning.

Expressen has previously reported that the money that the extortionists tried to demand is based on an alleged debt that stretches back to the 2010s when Jonas Falk was suspected of smuggling cocaine on a huge scale. Criminal suspicions for which he was later acquitted in the Court of Appeal in 2014.

Last fall, the journalist Rikard Anderson released a book about the Playa case in which new information emerged which claimed that Jonas Falk, via the bulvan, had invested close to SEK 30 million in Joachim Kuylenstierna’s company at the time. In a telephone recording from that time, Joachim Kuylenstierna can be heard describing a scheme for money laundering and plans to put politicians in companies to avoid suspicion.

Both Joachim Kuylenstierna and Jonas Falk have in previous statements denied that there was any such arrangement.