Thousands of Swedish pensioners hit with manipulation in savings
Sunday, 06 October 2013
A large tangle of investment fraud is being rolled up by the Swedish
Economic Crimes Bureau, which will have heavy consequences on
pensioners who had hopped to have been involved in a form of attractive
savings.
At the centre of the scandal is among others, the Finnish businessman,
Johan Ulander and Eniro's former CEO, Lars Guldstrand, who is also the
key persons in the saga that also entangled two troubled mining
companies, Mineral Invest International and IGE Resources, a
Scandinavian mineral resource company based in Stockholm which
are said to have played with pensioners' savings.
The story goes that individuals, often-wealthy retirees have been
encouraged to invest several hundred million of Swedish Kornor into
four different corporate bonds. These bonds would earn them interest
rates of up to 12 percent - that was the promise.
Swedish pensioners feared to have lost millions to bogus investors / Granscole/ file image
The set-up was almost identical in all four bonds, which went under
the names Contender. Companies in Dubai issued the bonds, which are
then marketed by asset managers in Sweden, writes the Swedish business
daily, Dagens Industri.
The ring of the confusing spaghetti node continues that the plan
presented was that, the Dubai companies would lend money to two other
companies: Ducom, a commodities trading company in Dubai, and
Conventus, Commodities Minerals & Mining (CCMM), a mining company
registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The spaghetti spinner in the commodity trading and mining company is
Johan Ulander, a businessman previously sentenced for Economic Crimes
in Finland. According to the Swedish business paper, he controls both
companies. He is also said to have connections with the Dubai Companies
which sent out the bonds.
Today things are not looking good for the Swedish pensioners who
invested or saved their pension plan in Johan Ulander companies and
bonds. In June, they were informed that Johan Ulanders commodity
trading and mining company could not pay back Skr227 million and
interest on it - about Skr 14 million, a total of Skr241 million.
This has led the shares of Lars Guldstrand's investment company, GKL
growth capital, to collapse in value. GKL describe itself as a private
equity fund, challenging management strategies and business plans,
striving for full potential as products, technologies and market evolve.
According to sources close to the Swedish business daily, Dagens
Industri, the investigation into the bonds had been going on since 2011
by the Swedish economic crime bureau when the matter was moved
from the International Public Prosecution Office to economic crimes
bureau. Since the fall of 2012 the lead investigator and prosecutor,
Stig Åström has declines to answer any questions about the
investigation.
The suspected fraudsters are closely linked to the Swedish mining
companies, which are currently facing their own economic crisis. The
companies, Mineral Invest and IGE Resources have in the past year both
done business with two companies operating in the Johan Ulander's
business sphere: Alluvia, registered in Jersey, and its major
shareholder Amaranth, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands.
Can anyone trace the spaghetti node?
For us we know that some Swedish pensioners have been screwed off some
of their hard earned retirement money by some unscrupulous scammers who
have not come from Eastern Europe or African. They are real Swedes.
By Scancomark.com Team
