According to the prosecutor, the drug racket involves more than 2.5 tons of cocaine. The suspected crimes are said to have been committed between 2020 and 2021 in international waters as well as in Spain, Suriname, Colombia, Costa Rica and Portugal.
This concerns a total of four cases of particularly serious drug offenses. According to prosecutor Lars Lindman, Falk planned and organized cocaine smuggling from South America to Europe across the Atlantic. He is also said to have had cocaine produced that was marked with “a special stamp” to indicate that it was his and that he had paid for it, according to the prosecutor.
Encrypted communication
All four crimes were committed abroad, says Lars Lindman in a press release.
“The evidence is largely based on Sky ECC communications, but is supported in significant part by seizures of cocaine that have been analyzed and where evidence has been requested from other countries,” he says.
The encrypted communication service Sky ECC was cracked in 2021 in an international police collaboration, and evidence from there has led to a long series of prosecutions and convictions in Sweden. Sky became popular in criminal contexts after police managed to break into the encrypted Encrochat the year before.
Captain to testify
For one of the charges, the prosecutor has called as a witness the captain of a boat that is said to have transported just over 1.6 tons of cocaine to Spain.
The man will tell, among other things, how the cocaine was loaded onto the boat and how it was packaged. The boat in question was boarded by the Spanish Coast Guard outside Spanish territorial waters.
Jonas Falk denies all charges.
Falk was sentenced last year to four years and ten months in prison for involvement in a high-profile extortion racket against financier Joachim Kuylenstierna, former CEO of the listed investment company Fastator.
In 2010, he was also identified as the main suspect in one of Sweden’s largest drug cases. The case, which came to be known as “Operation Playa”, ended in an acquittal for Jonas Falk in the Court of Appeal. For the 3.5 years he was forced to spend in custody, he was awarded damages of 3.6 million kronor.
Jonas Falk has also previously been convicted of several bank robberies, among other crimes.
