A Swedish inspector has been charged with receiving 70,000 kroner in exchange for approving up to 50 vehicles with faulty registrations.
An inspector from Växjö in Sweden has been charged with receiving payments for illegally approving cars.
The police estimate that the inspector earned around 70,000 kroner from approving between 40 and 50 cars with defects and deficiencies.
The case began to unfold when police found evidence of bribery during an examination of a confiscated mobile phone belonging to an 18-year-old man.
This is what Smålandsposten writes.
Further investigation revealed that the inspector had accepted money to refrain from noting defects on cars.
Inspector charged 70,000 kroner to inspect 50 cars
The customers consisted of private individuals, car dealers and mechanics from auto repair shops. However, the police will not reveal how many customers there were.
"We suspect that the actual number of cars and the quantities are significantly higher than that," says Samir Cehic, head of the police crime unit in Växjö.
However, he adds that it may be difficult to prove the full extent of the fraud in the viewing hall.
People who have purchased cars that have been approved illegally now risk having to pay to get the cars approved legally anyway.
In the worst case, this could mean repair bills of several thousand kroner if the police do not charge them with fraud.
The actual approval of the cars should never have gone through. Yet it is not unheard of for Swedes to bribe their way out of car inspections.
In Sweden, this is called "swish syn". Conversely, it is also present in Denmark. However, a political majority at Christiansborg is trying to put an end to the fraud.
Therefore, the area has also been tightened up with a number of legislative changes that came into effect on January 1st of this year. The changes should have actually been in place long ago. Read more about it here .
The restrictions in Denmark came after DR's consumer program Kontant focused on the so-called SMS views.
They work by requiring drivers to pay up to 5,000 kroner to have their cars approved without going through the inspection halls.
Despite the stricter legislation, several surveyors have recently been convicted of crimes in Denmark.
For example, a 46-year-old man was sentenced to two years in prison last year. Although he is no longer allowed to work as a surveyor, he was also given a warning about deportation.
