The young Swedish couple lived a life of luxury in Los Angeles despite their lack of legal income.
According to Swedish police, the man was a central figure in a network that brought in close to half a billion kroner from fraud and money laundering.
In a settlement with US prosecutors, the 28-year-old now admits to eco-crimes in the US, which could get him ten years in prison.
The 28-year-old has lived in the United States for several years. His girlfriend has published pictures on her social media that show the couple’s glamorous life.
– He seems to have had a good time in the USA. He has lived in a good residential area in Los Angeles, prosecutor Johanna Kolga has previously said.
But that existence ended on November 19 last year when the 28-year-old man was arrested in his home. On the same day, he was arrested in absentia by the Stockholm district court, suspected of defrauding 25 people in Sweden of their savings, a total of SEK 60 million, through bank ID fraud.
Revealed by secret source
The man is suspected of having played the leading role in a network that earned close to half a billion kroner from fraud and money laundering.
– This is about system-threatening, technologically advanced and complicated crime. Some of the plaintiffs have lost their entire life savings, prosecutor Johanna Kolga said in a press release in connection with the detention.
An important reason why the Swedish police tracked him down was that they got a secret source, who allegedly had daily contact with the 28-year-old for several years.
The man was requested to be extradited to Sweden, but in the USA a parallel criminal investigation has been underway.
Admits: Laundered proceeds of crime
Now the 28-year-old has entered into a plea deal with the federal prosecutor’s office in the Central District of California.
From court documents that Expressen has seen, it appears that he pleads guilty to having engaged in unlicensed money transfers with, among other things, cryptocurrencies. In total, this amounts to many millions.
Because the assets were often transferred between many accounts and intermediaries and originated from marketplaces on the Darknet, the 28-year-old understood it was money laundering of the proceeds of crime but ignored it, according to the agreement he signed.
The operation took place between early 2020 and the arrest in November 2024.
Can get ten years in prison
For the unlicensed money transfers, he can be sentenced to a maximum of ten years in prison, followed by a three-year period of supervised release, and a fine of the equivalent of around five million kroner.
The Swedish criminal investigation into gross fraud is still ongoing.
“The same suspicions remain, and we are awaiting word from the United States regarding the extradition,” writes senior chamber prosecutor Jenna Sourander in an email.
When the 28-year-old was arrested in his absence last year, his defender could not make any statement. Expressen is looking for his defense lawyer Slobodan Jovicic.
