Published 15 September 2021 at 14.04
Domestic. A 47-year-old man was today sentenced to three years in prison for espionage for acquiring and disclosing trade secrets to a Russian embassy official.
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The convicted man is a civil engineer and has worked as a consultant for Volvo Cars during 2016-2017 and for Scania from February 2018 until he was arrested on February 26, 2019.
In 2016, it had contact with a Russian embassy official and the two then began to meet with some regularity until the man was arrested at a meeting with the Russian at a restaurant in central Stockholm.
Gothenburg District Court has concluded that the man copied a secret information from both Volvo and Scania and transferred this to e.g. USB sticks that he then handed over to the Russian embassy official, and that he was fully aware that the information he provided would benefit Russia. At meetings with the embassy official, the man has regularly received cash, money that the district court considers to be compensation for the information provided.
In order to be convicted of espionage, it is required that Sweden's security can be damaged if the information benefits foreign powers. The district court has ruled that this is the case regarding the information that the man obtained from Scania, while it has not been proven that this is the case regarding the information from Volvo.
In addition to the prison sentence, the district court has decided that SEK 27,800 in cash that the convicted person had at the time of the arrest and which he admitted that he had received from the embassy official, should be confiscated because the money was judged to be compensation he received for the espionage. The district court has also banned the man from traveling and ordered him to give up his passport.