A Swedish entrepreneur who once called herself the “queen of trash” has been sentenced to six years in prison for illegally dumping hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic waste in the country’s biggest ever environmental crime case.
Fariba Vancor, previously known as Bella Nilsson and the former chief executive of waste management company Think Pink, was convicted on Tuesday of 19 counts of serious environmental crimes. Her ex-husband, Thomas Nilsson, was found guilty of 12 counts of serious environmental crimes and given a sentence of three years and six months in prison.
Of the 11 people who went on trial in September, all but one of them were convicted of environmental crimes by the Södertörn district court in Huddinge, near Stockholm.
Niklas Schüllerqvist, one of the judges in the case, said Think Pink’s dumping had posed “great risks to people and the environment” and compared the business to “a kind of pyramid scheme”.
“Waste management has been deficient or incorrect to a significant extent. It has also caused environmental damage through emissions and, in some cases, great risks to people and the environment,” he said. “There is therefore no doubt that there have been environmental crimes at the places where the waste has been handled.”
Of the 11 on trial, five people, including Vancor and Nilsson, were sentenced to prison for between two and six years for serious environmental crimes and five others were sentenced to shorter prison sentences or suspended sentences for environmental crimes.
The person who was acquitted was Think Pink’s former chief executive, the TV personality Leif-Ivan Karlsson.
The five main defendants were ordered to pay about a quarter of a billion kronor (£19m) in damages, including to Botkyrka municipality and the city of Västerås.
The case was the largest ever handled by Sweden’s national unit for environmental and work environment cases, involving a multi-year legal process and more than 80 days of hearings. The verdict was almost 700 pages long.
“It was a very extensive investigation – 150 witnesses and experts have been heard, as well as around 20 plaintiffs,” Schüllerqvist said.
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All defendants denied wrongdoing.
Vancor’s defence team said it was surprised by Tuesday’s verdict. “It was a little unexpected,” lawyer Jan Tibbling told the newspaper Aftonbladet, adding: “Of course, we’re not happy.”
He said he had yet to speak to his client to discuss whether to lodge an appeal.
