Think Pink's CEO and founder, known as Bella Nilsson or "Queen of trash", denies all allegations of crime, according to Tibbling.
The company was founded in 2012 under a different name by Bella Nilsson and her then-husband Thomas Nilsson. During the latter part of the 2010s, the waste management company achieved great success. Between 2017 and 2019, Think Pink was listed among Dagens Industri's "Gasellers", where Sweden's fastest-growing companies are found.
But behind the success with the pink trash bags, enormous environmental crimes were hidden, according to the indictment filed in December 2023 against eleven people.
Simplified, the prosecution claims that Think Pink, for payment, took on the task of handling large quantities of waste throughout the country according to the strict requirements for hazardous waste, but then neglected to follow the regulations.
Criminal business idea
The prosecutors believe that the criminality in recent years has simply been the business idea.
In the beginning, there may have been an idea to conduct a completely legal business, but from 2015, as we have looked at, there is no such intention, said Anders Gustafsson, one of the prosecutors in the case, to TT in connection with the indictment.
The charges in the Think Pink scandal revolve around hundreds of thousands of tons of waste that are alleged to have been dumped illegally at 21 locations in central Sweden between 2015 and 2020.
The waste, which according to regulations should have been sorted, has according to the indictment been crushed and piled up. This has led to environmental pollution and extensive waste fires in several places.
All deny
Among the five people described as most active and charged with gross environmental crimes are, in addition to the two founders Bella and Thomas Nilsson, also TV profile Leif-Ivan Karlsson, who was CEO of the company for a period. A sixth person is charged with aiding and abetting gross environmental crimes, and the remaining five are charged with environmental crimes of a normal degree.
All deny any wrongdoing.
Jan Tibbling says that it has been a tough time for Bella Nilsson during the years the investigation has been ongoing and that they now look forward to defending themselves in court.
It's good that one can now present one's respective standpoints and come to a conclusion.
The trial begins on Tuesday and is expected to last until the summer of 2025. Over 150 people are called to testify.
The indictment against the eleven people in the Think Pink scandal is the largest environmental crime case to have reached a Swedish court. The preliminary investigation consists of approximately 50,000 pages.
The locations affected by the indictment are located in 15 municipalities. These are Botkyrka, Eskilstuna, Flen, Gullspång, Haninge, Huddinge, Håbo, Laxå, Norberg, Norrtälje, Skövde, Strängnäs, Uppsala, Västerås, and Östhammar.
Five people among the accused are suspected of gross environmental crimes. Four of these are also suspected of economic crimes.
One person is charged with aiding and abetting gross environmental crimes, and the remaining five in the case are suspected of environmental crimes of a normal degree.
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