A new report from Roaring maps where Sweden’s high-risk and unscrupulous companies are located and how they are distributed across regions and industries. The study reveals clear geographic and sector-specific patterns and highlights how criminal actors exploit companies to carry out economic crime.
The context is serious. A report from the Expert Group on Public Economics (ESO) estimates that the criminal economy in Sweden has an annual turnover of about SEK 352 billion and generates criminal proceeds of around SEK 185 billion. At the same time, roughly 80 percent of criminal networks in the EU use companies as tools to facilitate crime.
Risky companies take many forms. They can include entities with little or no real business activity that nonetheless maintain F-tax registration, VAT registration and creditworthiness. Such companies can be used by criminals to infiltrate legitimate economic structures and carry out financial crimes.
Roaring analyzed over a thousand flagged companies
Roaring’s report examined Swedish limited companies and analyzed changes in board compositions, SNI (industry) codes and corporate addresses, among other factors. By combining several risk indicators, the company identified 1,005 firms classified as high-risk.
The analysis uses an index that indicates whether a county or industry has a higher or lower share of high-risk companies compared with its share of all Swedish limited companies.
Skåne identified as the highest-risk region
One of the report’s clearest findings is that Skåne now appears as Sweden’s most risk-exposed region for the presence of high-risk companies.
With an index value of 154, the county shows a significant overrepresentation compared with other parts of the country and is highlighted as the primary risk region in this year’s mapping.
Education support sector the most vulnerable industry
At the industry level, the education support category tops the list of sectors with the highest concentration of risk.
The sector records an index of 244, making it the most risk-prone industry in Roaring’s 2025 assessment.
Real estate sector shows strongest resilience
Conversely, some industries stand out for lower risk. Real estate companies display the lowest risk index in the report, with a value of just 15.
This result is notable because the real estate sector is often mentioned in discussions about economic crime and money laundering. Roaring’s analysis, however, indicates that this sector shows the strongest resilience among the industries examined.
Legal records common among flagged companies
The report also finds that a large share of the identified companies have ties to individuals with documented legal records.
Of the 1,005 flagged companies, 667—equivalent to 66.4 percent—have representatives with registered legal incidents.
Among the most common categories of offenses are:
- Money laundering
- Tax fraud
- Fraud
- Accounting offenses
- Drug offenses
- Assault
Many companies report no turnover
The report also shows that a substantial portion of the identified companies have limited or no economic activity.
Among the 1,005 companies:
- 536 report turnover of zero SEK.
- 149 are in ongoing or completed bankruptcy or liquidation processes.
- 29 report turnover exceeding SEK 6 million.
Roaring explains that the group reporting zero turnover includes both active companies and firms undergoing various winding-down processes, such as mergers, liquidations and bankruptcies.
Valuable insight for businesses and authorities
The report provides a unique view of how high-risk companies are distributed across Sweden and which sectors are most exposed to unscrupulous actors.
For businesses, public authorities and organizations working with risk management, compliance and supplier controls, the findings can serve as a practical tool to identify where risks are greatest and which warning signs should be noticed early.