Trustor 'mastermind' questioned by Swedish police in Brussels

Joachim Posener, accused of being the brains behind the Trustor investment scandal, has been questioned by Swedish authorities after more than a decade on the run.

• Prison sentence for Trustor fraud upheld (26 Oct 09)
• Key player in Trustor affair sentenced to prison (30 May 08)
• Joachim Posener a free man (13 Jul 07)

According to the Expressen newspaper, Swedish police and prosecutors interviewed Posener on Tuesday in a room in Sweden’s embassy in Brussels.

“I don’t think that it would help my client’s interests if I commented on what came out during the interrogation,” Posener’s defence attorney Leif Gustafson told the newspaper.

Swedish authorities have been looking for Posener for eleven years for his suspected role as the mastermind behind the Trustor investment scandal – a crime for which the statute of limitations has now run out.

According to Expressen, the interrogation in Brussels concerned the crime of dishonesty toward creditors (oredlighet mot borgenär), which occurred in 2004.

At the time, TV3 paid 3.5 million kronor ($500,000) for an interview with Posener. The money was supposed to be transferred to his account, but Posener had filed for personal bankruptcy at the time and was being hunted by Sweden’s debt collection agency (Kronofogden) for 19.6 million kronor in unpaid taxes.

Thus, the money was instead deposited with a publishing house which had the rights to Posener’s book.

Bankruptcy administrators have filed a lawsuit against both the owners of TV3 and the publisher, claiming that the money should have instead gone to the bankruptcy estate.

The Trustor affair stems from a 1997 transaction involving British businessman Lord Moyne, who illegally bought a majority stake in Trustor by financing the purchase with Trustor’s own money.

Shortly afterwards, it became clear that the company had been subject to a major fraud.

Lord Moyne, a writer and son of the well-known British aristocrat Diana Mitford, was cleared of any wrongdoing.

In 2004, a court ordered Posener to repay 125 million kronor to Trustor. The case was tried in his absence, and attempts to find out where he was hiding were unsuccessful.