For their services, the company received the equivalent of 9.5 million kronor from aid funds during the covid-19 pandemic, in addition to payments from customers.
Now, the two owners are expected to plead guilty to fraud. The bodies were never buried: last year, 190 rotting corpses were found in an insect-infested building owned by the funeral home, and the case was reopened. In the premises, there were bodies belonging to people who had died several years earlier, in several cases stacked on top of each other.
According to an investigation by the news agency AP, the owners, a married couple, likely sent fake ashes to relatives and fabricated cremation protocols. Court documents show that the "ashes" in some cases consisted of dry concrete.
Meanwhile, the couple is said to have lived a life of luxury. They spent the money from the state and customers on expensive cars and clothes, trips, cryptocurrency, and fat-burning laser treatments.
The defendants risk up to 20 years in prison and million-kronor fines if they are found guilty.
