Report: What hinders the police's investigation of corruption cases?

Some main findings:

• There are large geographical differences in where in the country there is a risk of being investigated for corruption.

• The impression is that solving corruption cases depends on which police district investigates the case. 

• It is random which corruption cases are investigated
  • It is e.g. high number of cases relating to corruption investigations of construction cases in some police districts, but not in other districts.

• There is a need for the use of non-traditional investigative methods in corruption investigations – compared to other financial criminal cases because:
  • there is rarely written evidence of agreements involving corruption,
  • side deals are kept secret,
  • there are no victims who can provide the police with information about the course of events,
  • witnesses are related to each other or are themselves part of the act of corruption,
  • there are few informants or sources who will give the police information,
  • it is demanding to reveal the actual conditions. 

• Moments of importance for clarifying suspicions of corruption:
  • Corruption investigation – requires adequate resource use at an early stage of the investigation.
  • The investigation management – ​​is likely to have a major impact on the outcome of the investigation.
  • Organization of the work and cooperation between prosecution and investigators has an impact on the result (among other things when choosing the topic, method and strategy). 
  • Stability and continuity is important (ie prevent lending or moving of resources during investigation to other police tasks)

• The role of public prosecutors - where the use of investigative methods, procedural issues, personal attacks on individuals in the prosecution create unfamiliar challenges for the local public prosecutor/public prosecutor's office.

Download the report here.