Woman received six million in compensation for fabricated robberies - sentenced

In the spring of 2017, a woman reports that she was the victim of a robbery at Östermalm in central Stockholm. Her details are somewhat vague, but she claims to have gotten rid of a Patek Philippe watch, two very exclusive rings and a wallet.

She tells about how she was stopped in the street by a man and woman. After that, she is said to have been pulled into a gate. While the man pushes an unknown object against her back, the other robber goes through her bag. The woman's theory is that the robbers had an eye on her and followed her around town.

For the police, the woman describes the appearance of the robbers as "Eastern European". She also claims that they were elegantly dressed.

In 2023, the woman reports that she was the victim of another robbery. This time she says she got rid of a bracelet, a ring and a watch. Again, she singles out a man and a woman as perpetrators. Both are said to have been neatly dressed and, according to the woman, held something hard against her back while they asked her to hand over the items.

In total, the woman, who is now 69 years old, receives more than six million kroner in compensation from two insurance companies.

A few weeks before the woman reports the second robbery, an auction company in Hong Kong receives a Patek Philippe watch sent to them. It comes from the woman who signs an agreement with the company to sell valuables. But it will soon turn out that it is the same watch that the woman said she was robbed on in 2017.

The police are allowed to take part in the information and a criminal investigation is launched. When the police search the woman's home in 2023, several of the items she reported as stolen are found. In 2025, another search is made and even more objects are found in a hidden space in the woman's kitchen.

The Stockholm district court now sentences the woman to two years and ten months in prison for two cases of gross fraud, which the news agency Siren was the first to report.

The 69-year-old's explanation for what happened is that two years after the first robbery, she received a brown envelope in her mailbox. It reportedly contained the watch and the one ring that went missing in the alleged robbery.

She then got scared and got the feeling that someone was watching her. At that time, according to the woman, it happened that unknown people entered the gate of the house where she lived. The woman's theory is that the robbers returned the items because they were difficult to sell.

The woman says she then tried to sell the watch because it felt uncomfortable to keep it.

- I tried to sell the watch to get rid of it. And it wasn't very smart, she has said in police interrogations.

The district court emphasizes in its judgment that it appears highly unlikely that the robbers would seek out the woman and return the items long after the alleged crime happened.

According to her own information, the woman had very good finances at this time. When the police ask how many Patek Philippe watches she owns, the first answer is four. Then she corrects herself and says that it could probably be five.

In questioning, the woman is also asked about how she thinks about the fact that she received compensation for items that she kept at the same time.

- Yes, but that was what I repressed in some way, the woman replies.