The mystery surrounding the thefts - speed cameras worth millions of kroner disappear

The wave of thefts began in June. In Stockholm County, ten cameras have disappeared until September. Another six have been stolen in Uppsala county between September and October.

Since the items cost SEK 300,000 each, the Swedish Transport Administration has thus lost at least SEK 4.8 million this year. A further number of cameras have also been vandalised.

- It is of course worrying. Every penny could have gone to something better, says Per Hurtig, national coordinator for automatic traffic safety control at the Swedish Transport Administration.

The phenomenon is not new, he says. The Swedish Transport Administration registers 20 to 30 thefts annually.

- Colleagues I have spoken to in other countries testify to the same thing.

The question that both the Swedish Transport Agency and the police ask themselves is why exactly speed cameras have become stolen property.

- They are used specifically for this purpose. The cameras don't even look the same in the different countries. So we don't think they are used for anything else.

The police do not rule out that organized crime may be behind the latest wave of thefts. But that assessment is based on the fact that the attacks have taken place in different places, not on an evaluation of the motive.

- At the moment it is difficult to say what it is due to, says Ashkan Ardalan, the police's press officer for the case in Stockholm County.

After a large theft wave in 2022, three people from Stockholm were sentenced to prison. At the home of one of them, the police found 23 system cameras of the model used in the measuring cabinets that store the speed cameras. All but one had been stored under the man's bed.

The police were able to establish that the perpetrators had the intention of reselling the stolen goods when they took the system cameras out of the measuring cabinets. But the purpose for which they were to be sold is not clear from the judgment.