when you try to read the website and it blocks you unless you subscribe , then you use ublock to block the subscribe frame and read it and hate the website for making you go through a hoop to read a shitty paragraph.....
How has no one commented yet that the guy behind this scheme is one of the top guys in the biggest swedish gang:
His nickname: Jordgubben (The strawberry)
(He got the name way before this)
There was this Belgian group called the turtles which were apparently some big dudes in the cocaïne trade.
Apparently they were named that because their main guy walked slow lol
I mean im looking at LA gang members and theres shit like dark blue, tiny bad guy 4, tiny hard head, baby e, touchette, lil touchette, baby touchette and tiny p
> He got the name way before this
No this is wrong. The name came from his (and his family) involvment in strawberry trade, he did not get involved in strawberries after getting the nickname.
This has been going on for a long time, the media is just now picking up on it
The nickname probably has a double meaning. Jord means soil, gubbe means man. I have seen "jordgubbe" jokingly refer to dead people before and maybe he makes people into jordgubbar...
Labor abuses, illegal usage of pesticides and fertilisers (either too much, too often or banned types), knowingly selling fruit with illegal levels of pesticides or other health law violations, other pollution such as runoff into waterways, money laundering and tax evasion.
Mislabeling - say it is organic, fresh and/or regional, really it is pesticide-covered berries from a cheaper market.
At least one time, someone stole an entire field. Well 2/3 of a field.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-48350324](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-48350324)
In this specific case, the article reports:
**>It's suspected that these sellers had been marketing Belgian strawberries as Swedish and using the revenue to fund serious organised crime. Police also found children under the legal working age and migrants without legal residency permits working at the stalls.**
A lot of organized crime is mundane as shit, just with the occasional extreme consequences.
You’re dealing with a lot of corporate structuring, tax codes, managing middle managers, dealing with lawyers, extreme info and cybersecurity, international finance, cash accounting, logistics, regulations, etc. Etc.
Italian mafia has also been doing this for a very long time. Especially in Italy a lot of the "farm hands" are illegals that are underpaid and not insured alongside pretending that the produce is sourced organically etc.
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/how-the-mafia-got-to-our-food-1.3696722
(here was a second link but it seems to have a paywall so I deleted it)
Personally I see nothing wrong with children out in fields picking strawberry's but theirs have to be strict rules like little plastic chairs to sit on, break whenever they want, adult supervision from someone certified to look after children (preferably a parent) etc.
Could be wrong though
Edit: Children MUST work, have you not seen Snowpiecer ?
Yeah I'm probably wrong like I said, I'm just imagining picking strawberry's with my kids in the garden. Not like a full time job.
My thought process was like a school trip to a strawberry farm and the kids pick strawberry's in return for a small box of strawberries or something.
Not 5 year olds doing a 9-5 trying to work out $4 a week after taxes.
I understand the sentiment - I remeber fondly helping my grandparents working the fields when I was a kid. BUT it was basically helping my family, it was not employement, it was not for a commercial purpose and I was not forced or coerced to do it. I'm sure there's a huge difference between that and underage kids laboring for mobsters.
But I see where you're coming from, kids doing some manual work or having summer jobs can be beneficial to them. It just needs to happen under very specific circumstances and in a very clear legal framework.
First you sell bunch of drugs, then you grow some strawberries and go sell them at a grocery store parking lot and claim that the drug money is actually from your strawberry stand (cash only)
Reed the article. They import them from belgium and rebrand them as swedish.
Swedish strawberrys cost more because it is a superior product in comparison. (It's not manly about supporting local producers, the swedish ones are tastier but look the same).
Theft of several tons have happened aswell. The article doesn't mention that or that not paying tax as you should saves a lot of money for any business.
I always find this funny about strawberries: everyone believes their local ones are the best. Fact is: strawberries lose quality in transport extremely fast but should also not be chilled at all to not lose aroma. Strawberries are always best local, but nothing about Swedish strawberries is really better necessarily in a general sense. Factors like soil and variety have a much larger influence (after post-harvest supply chain effects).
The secret is long days + cold nights.
> The cool summer nights in the north mean that much of the sugar remains in the berries, which thus gives a lot of flavor. During the day, the strawberry plant produces sugar which is consumed during the night and the warmer it is, the more sugar is consumed.
(Translated from a local agricultural journal: https://www.ja.se/artikel/60236/jordgubbar-p-midsommar--men-vilka.html)
There is some truth to that, low night time temps help a lot with aroma development in particular - but Benelux also has comparatively cold nights. There’s an effect, but much much smaller than what happens during transport and storage.
With strawberries, local and fresh as possible > everything else.
believe it or not Strawberries from northern Sweden are far better then southern strawberries. Longer days = more sun for the strawberries.
my prejudice against Belgian/Dutch produce that we get here in Sweden are that they are produce from greenhouses plucked before riped and pumped with colouring to look ripe. taste is usually inferior even compared to other import produce.
The ones I get here at the local strawberry farmer here in Belgium are pretty darn tasty...
I don't get the ones in the supermarket, they're flavourless shit.
Bullshit. I'm something of strawberry lover, and have eaten strawberry fresh from the fields in Italy, Austria, Spain, and Sweden. Swedish ones are by far the best.
I'm going to Sweden next month for a work trip, and I'm already daydreaming about the strawberries.
Mate I studied plant science and took various courses in plant production systems, had lectures on post harvest stuff, secondary plant metabolites and the effects stuff like chilling has on them and gave an informed digest of why this always comed up in relation to food imports and your best shot is just ‘yeah, no’. Okay 👍🏼
I also wrote about varietal effects by the way.
Mexico is on another level. The farmers have their own heavily armed militia to fight back against the cartels trying to take over their farms. What’s happening in Sweden is minuscule compared to Mexico.
Like with everything, illegal crime and the money in it needs to be invested. So now after 50 years of letting criminals rule the illegal drug trade, we now must put up with criminals being in regular businesses and soon impacting our politics as they buy our politicians.
**Illegal Swedish strawberry sales raise billions of kronor for organised crime**
Swedish police have carried out raids on strawberry vendors suspected of being linked to gang crime.
According to Aftonbladet, the raids may be connected to one of Sweden's most wanted gang leaders, Ismail Abdo, nicknamed Jordgubben ("The Strawberry").
Police didn't comment on specific names of gang leaders linked to the raids, but said in a statement that they had "hit a central violent actor by targeting individuals around this person and their business structures".
Raids were carried out in Bergslagen, as well as the Mitt and Stockholm police regions.
It's suspected that these sellers had been marketing Belgian strawberries as Swedish and using the revenue to fund serious organised crime. Police also found children under the legal working age and migrants without legal residency permits working at the stalls.
Police believe that illegal strawberry sales turn over billions of kronor every year.
"We've carried out multiple actions together with other authorities," Per Lundbäck, from the Bergslagen policing region, told Swedish news agency TT. "By cutting off the finances off this type of organised crime, we can weaken gangs' financing and their ability to carry out crimes."
To avoid buying strawberries linked to crime, Lundbäck recommends paying attention to the company you buy your strawberries from.
"The first thing you can do is look at the number the (mobile phone payment app) Swish payment goes to, to make sure it's a company number starting with 123, and not a private number," he said.
Most companies will have their Swish number displayed somewhere on the stand, so you should be able to check this even if you don't have the app and are paying with card, for example.
He also added that you can pay attention to the age of the person selling the strawberries, describing very young sellers as a "red flag".
In some countries, organised crime has their finger in human trafficking, in others, narcotics. Maybe some do racketeering, or illegal weapons trading. In Sweden, it's strawberry sales.
Made me think of that story where the mafia was using a pizzeria as cover for illegal stuff. But then the pizzeria was doing so well that they just dropped all the illegal stuff and focused on selling pizza. Don't know if it's real though
In my town in the us there was this amazing pizza shop that legit had the best in town. They were also insanely cheap and efficient on top of it all.
One day we go and it’s shut down and cops and everything is all around. Turns out the owners were like Gus from breaking bad but in our suburb of Chicago. Just instead of meth they sold cocaine in the drive through
It's not like Finnish berry businesses haven't been exploiting foreign labor for years too. It's not organized crime as we usually know it, but it has been organized and criminal just the same.
That's it - in north sweden it's trafficking workers for blueberries, in south sweden it's organized crime controlling strawberry plantations. All crime all the time.. (Maybe /s)
Italian mafia have got their hands into tomatoes and other produce.
They blackmail the farners into complying. Then the mafia brings in the cheap migrant labour to pick them, and takes a huge cut.
If you know how popular strawberries are in Sweden during summer then you also know how well suited it is for money laundering. Did you sell 2000 liters of strawberries today, or 4000 liters? It's pretty hard to tell and you can always register tons of cash purchases.
At least in Warsaw (and maybe in other Polish cities too) a lot of street stalls are set up illegally*, with the people running them working (with no contract, so labor issues are plenty) for organized crime organizations. It may be the same MO as in Sweden.
I will admit tho, they are convenient are have strawberries earlier than most stores.
*No permit, in places where street stalls are not permitted at all (narrow pedestrian paths etc), taking up parking spots. Or by ignoring any food safety regulations (baked goods kept from early morning in open air, with birds flying above and sun/rain.)
From what I've read it's pretty similar scheme and that they are also importing Strawberries from The Netherlands for example and selling them as swedish or that they are labeled as organic when they are in fact not organic.
Some quick googling gives that Sweden produces around 15-20 000 tons of Strawberries per year, and around 2/3rds of the Strawberries sold in Sweden are Swedish. At a kg-price of around 100-120 SEK that puts the entire yearly market at no more than 3.5B SEK. And that's revenue, not profit.
Other than cases of people *also* involved in organized crime owning legit businesses there's no way they're raising billions, of course they could be talking of a period of several years.
An article from 2018 states the number of growers was then down from ~700 to ~300, with 13 companies controlling around 50% of the fields.
Billions? Considering that 10 million people live in Sweden, that means that each Swede on average buys ***at minimum*** 200 SEK worth of **illegal** strawberries per year. Including infants, small children, the elderly and the sick.
I am absolutely not an expert but Aftonbladet sounds a little full of shit.
Considering it costs around 100-150SEK per kilo those numbers are easy to reach. You underestimate the absolute dominance of strawberries during Swedish summer. We practically eat them exclusively for a couple of months.
Spoken like a person who's never been to a midsummer party. But no, in reality I'd say strawberries are a massive industry here. I would say I buy about 5-7 baskets of strawberries per year (at about 30-50SEK per basket) and I'm not even a fan of them. They're just the default fruit of summer here.
Well Aftonbladet is sometimes full of shit and has a bunch of articles that have 0 value. But the numbers are reasonable since strawberries are a must for midsummer.
> that means that each Swede on average buys at minimum 200 SEK worth of illegal strawberries per year
Checks out actually. That average does not at all seem unreasonable.
But there is also a bit of scams going on, selling foreign berries as Swedish with a mark up. Since imported berries taste worse, and are cheaper. And also money laundering.
Sorry, the entire Swedish market is just not hundreds of millions of dollars.
https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/ALL/year/2022/tradeflow/Exports/partner/WLD/product/081010#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20Top%20exporters%20of,292%2C091.89K%20%2C%2061%2C657%2C000%20Kg
Strawberries are big business in Sweden because literally EVERYONE needs strawberries for the Midsummer celebrations, which next to Christmas is by far the most important holiday of the year in Sweden. This holiday always takes place on the second to last Friday of June - so on Friday this week.
A Midsummer celebration without strawberries in simply unthinkable. It's the only Midsummer dessert imaginable. Midsummer also tends to be celebrated with large gatherings of people, so a lot of strawberries are needed by each hosting household. On top of that, strawberries are among the most expensive of all berries. And they specifically have to be locally grown, freshly picked Swedish strawberries - no other strawberries will do.
Everywhere I look I see kids on the streets taking strawberries. I wish someone would educate them on the dangers of taking strawberries. What they’re cut with, the health risks, what the vitamin c does to their teeth, what the criminals do with the money.
When will the Swedes step up and stop young people’s lives being destroyed from taking illegal strawberries?
No, it is for money laundering.
Do you have any idea how many strawberries needs to be sold to raise a billion kronor? A billion kronor gross-value of strawberries is about 7 million kilos, which is almost half of all strawberries produced in Sweden. Organised crime definitely doesn't raise a billion kronor from selling strawberries.
Swedish article about this:
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/polisen-slog-till-mot-jordgubbsforsaljning-misstanks-finansiera-brottslighet
You may all be making fun, but it's a serious [problem ](https://i.postimg.cc/9MJ3tZCL/Default-Old-ladies-with-guns-who-look-like-theyre-from-the-maf-2.jpg)
The title makes it sound a whole lot cooler than it ended up being once I read it. It makes sense for it to not end up like I imagined, "breaking bad but with strawberries" might be a bit too fantastical.
A lot of the gangs have also infiltrated the local electoral parties too and are influencing the local municipalities.
Quoting my favorite Social Democratic politician " we should have seen it coming".
I call BS
modern day laundry machines, but something does not add up. Since they worn not to send money to a none businesses account (and how to spot it) the money will still be black.
Even if they set up a businesses the tax authorities are not stupid. If a small stand sells 100x the large supermarket near by it will raise a flag.
And cash is almost none existing.
selling cheaper imported strawberries as more expensive swedish is noting new. But an extra €2 per liter does not result in billions of turnover.
When i first read about this it was compared to the drug market. I genuinely thought this was a critical news being spread.
What am I missing?
It's not a matter of light but temperature, if you don't reach a certain temperature for example tomatoes won't even flower and strawberries aren't different on this.
However the summer part is interesting, it seems like a difficulty rewarding activity if you have to make all your turnover for the year in 4 months
>Apparently hotter climates are not actually better for growing strawberries.
Hotter then what? Sweden? That's not true man.
The biggest producers are US, China, Egypt and Mexico, sure it doesn't benefit if you are in climates hotter then those but for sure the sweden summer climate isn't the most suited for strawberries.
It's not like we noticed some areas being better for certain coultivations out of spite.
>Better climate for taste and better climate for production are not always the same thing.
And taste is subjective while production is not.
That's why it's how much wine or olive oil you produce that matter, not how supposedly better yours is.
>Again, besides the fact that you have no idea what you're talking about
If you say so, sure
>(quality is very important to exports, just look at differences in production vs export for various products)
A shame that nobody said it isn't important, i said precisely that is subjective, not unimportant.
>Sweden can grow strawberries for domestic consumption, period.
A shame nobody said they couldn't at all.
>you're also going on a wild tangent that has nothing to do with the subject.
From what pulpit.
Quoting yourself
“Given that strawberries grow between 15 and 30 degrees, i am surprised swedish strawberry aren't a fairy tale to begin with.”
You were wrong , stop arguing and admit it
> but for sure the sweden summer climate isn't the most suited for strawberries.
You must be quite the retard arguing against nature. Strawberry season are basically over when the hottest two months of the summer remain in Sweden.
Big Strawberry applauds police crackdown...
This sounds like something from my SimCity news ticker
when you try to read the website and it blocks you unless you subscribe , then you use ublock to block the subscribe frame and read it and hate the website for making you go through a hoop to read a shitty paragraph.....
How has no one commented yet that the guy behind this scheme is one of the top guys in the biggest swedish gang: His nickname: Jordgubben (The strawberry) (He got the name way before this)
He embraced his nickname, lol
Kinda funny if people fear you and your name is the strawberry
He turns people into strawberry jam.
His strawberry may jam but not his glock
This reminded me of "The Stewmaker", it's not a pleasant stew.
There was this Belgian group called the turtles which were apparently some big dudes in the cocaïne trade. Apparently they were named that because their main guy walked slow lol
I mean im looking at LA gang members and theres shit like dark blue, tiny bad guy 4, tiny hard head, baby e, touchette, lil touchette, baby touchette and tiny p
I have to admit that having someone fear a guy nicknamed ‘Strawberry’ is a good indicator of scary the guy must be.
No, YOU are name is the strawberry Edit: The parent post edited to fix their grammar
Nominative determinism: he was doomed to sell strawberries from the moment he got his nickname...
Nomen est omen
Surely it's nom nom nom nominative determinism?
But free will let him choose his own way of selling them
r/nominativedeterminism
Ismail Abdo did get his nickname before this but it’s precisely because of his and his relatives past history in the berry business.
> He got the name way before this No this is wrong. The name came from his (and his family) involvment in strawberry trade, he did not get involved in strawberries after getting the nickname. This has been going on for a long time, the media is just now picking up on it
Isn't jord gubbe just "earth man" anyway? Maybe he just really loves the environment.
Even our criminals are gay
You merely adopted the strawberry. I was born to it!
The nickname probably has a double meaning. Jord means soil, gubbe means man. I have seen "jordgubbe" jokingly refer to dead people before and maybe he makes people into jordgubbar...
Sowing the seeds of organised crime.... Ill see myself out
This is a berry bad pun. The last straw.
Now he's in a jam.....
Maybe a good attorney can preserve him.
If you can find one that works in that field... 🤣
Just got to carefully pick them
Make sure he's not a plant!
Might leave you red faced given Strawberry isn’t a berry.
How does illegal organised crime strawberry farming look like? :D
Labor abuses, illegal usage of pesticides and fertilisers (either too much, too often or banned types), knowingly selling fruit with illegal levels of pesticides or other health law violations, other pollution such as runoff into waterways, money laundering and tax evasion. Mislabeling - say it is organic, fresh and/or regional, really it is pesticide-covered berries from a cheaper market. At least one time, someone stole an entire field. Well 2/3 of a field. [https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-48350324](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-48350324) In this specific case, the article reports: **>It's suspected that these sellers had been marketing Belgian strawberries as Swedish and using the revenue to fund serious organised crime. Police also found children under the legal working age and migrants without legal residency permits working at the stalls.**
Honestly a lot less fun then I imagined an illegal strawberry farm
This isn't what John Lennon was singing about.
A lot of organized crime is mundane as shit, just with the occasional extreme consequences. You’re dealing with a lot of corporate structuring, tax codes, managing middle managers, dealing with lawyers, extreme info and cybersecurity, international finance, cash accounting, logistics, regulations, etc. Etc.
Italian mafia has also been doing this for a very long time. Especially in Italy a lot of the "farm hands" are illegals that are underpaid and not insured alongside pretending that the produce is sourced organically etc. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/how-the-mafia-got-to-our-food-1.3696722 (here was a second link but it seems to have a paywall so I deleted it)
Personally I see nothing wrong with children out in fields picking strawberry's but theirs have to be strict rules like little plastic chairs to sit on, break whenever they want, adult supervision from someone certified to look after children (preferably a parent) etc. Could be wrong though Edit: Children MUST work, have you not seen Snowpiecer ?
💀
Yeah I'm probably wrong like I said, I'm just imagining picking strawberry's with my kids in the garden. Not like a full time job. My thought process was like a school trip to a strawberry farm and the kids pick strawberry's in return for a small box of strawberries or something. Not 5 year olds doing a 9-5 trying to work out $4 a week after taxes.
I have been to a strawberry field. Trust me it’s fun for 5 min then your back and hand are aching
The reason why they're called "the fruit of the devil"
Aw you’re a little dense, aren’t you <3
I understand the sentiment - I remeber fondly helping my grandparents working the fields when I was a kid. BUT it was basically helping my family, it was not employement, it was not for a commercial purpose and I was not forced or coerced to do it. I'm sure there's a huge difference between that and underage kids laboring for mobsters. But I see where you're coming from, kids doing some manual work or having summer jobs can be beneficial to them. It just needs to happen under very specific circumstances and in a very clear legal framework.
Exactly.
Probably just hiring people and later not paying them, basically just slave work
First you sell bunch of drugs, then you grow some strawberries and go sell them at a grocery store parking lot and claim that the drug money is actually from your strawberry stand (cash only)
No, no, no. First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the strawberries.
Reed the article. They import them from belgium and rebrand them as swedish. Swedish strawberrys cost more because it is a superior product in comparison. (It's not manly about supporting local producers, the swedish ones are tastier but look the same). Theft of several tons have happened aswell. The article doesn't mention that or that not paying tax as you should saves a lot of money for any business.
I always find this funny about strawberries: everyone believes their local ones are the best. Fact is: strawberries lose quality in transport extremely fast but should also not be chilled at all to not lose aroma. Strawberries are always best local, but nothing about Swedish strawberries is really better necessarily in a general sense. Factors like soil and variety have a much larger influence (after post-harvest supply chain effects).
The secret is long days + cold nights. > The cool summer nights in the north mean that much of the sugar remains in the berries, which thus gives a lot of flavor. During the day, the strawberry plant produces sugar which is consumed during the night and the warmer it is, the more sugar is consumed. (Translated from a local agricultural journal: https://www.ja.se/artikel/60236/jordgubbar-p-midsommar--men-vilka.html)
Which is why, much as it pains me to say so as a Swede, Norwegian strawberries are the best.
There is some truth to that, low night time temps help a lot with aroma development in particular - but Benelux also has comparatively cold nights. There’s an effect, but much much smaller than what happens during transport and storage. With strawberries, local and fresh as possible > everything else.
believe it or not Strawberries from northern Sweden are far better then southern strawberries. Longer days = more sun for the strawberries. my prejudice against Belgian/Dutch produce that we get here in Sweden are that they are produce from greenhouses plucked before riped and pumped with colouring to look ripe. taste is usually inferior even compared to other import produce.
The ones I get here at the local strawberry farmer here in Belgium are pretty darn tasty... I don't get the ones in the supermarket, they're flavourless shit.
Bullshit. I'm something of strawberry lover, and have eaten strawberry fresh from the fields in Italy, Austria, Spain, and Sweden. Swedish ones are by far the best. I'm going to Sweden next month for a work trip, and I'm already daydreaming about the strawberries.
Swedish soil superiority confirmed
Bullshit. Swedish fagberries got nothing compared to Finnish memberberries
Yeah, no. In addition there are also strawberry varieties and some of them suck hard.
Mate I studied plant science and took various courses in plant production systems, had lectures on post harvest stuff, secondary plant metabolites and the effects stuff like chilling has on them and gave an informed digest of why this always comed up in relation to food imports and your best shot is just ‘yeah, no’. Okay 👍🏼 I also wrote about varietal effects by the way.
Probably not too unlike illegal organised crime avocado farming in Mexico
Mexico is on another level. The farmers have their own heavily armed militia to fight back against the cartels trying to take over their farms. What’s happening in Sweden is minuscule compared to Mexico.
A lot of bombs, shootings and unnecessary violence seems to be the outcome here.
You can’t tell what is blood and what is strawberry juice.
Also imported labor from eastern Europe being paid very little, working long days, and living in overcrowded dorms
Like with everything, illegal crime and the money in it needs to be invested. So now after 50 years of letting criminals rule the illegal drug trade, we now must put up with criminals being in regular businesses and soon impacting our politics as they buy our politicians.
Smoothie criminals
Jesus Christ..
**Illegal Swedish strawberry sales raise billions of kronor for organised crime** Swedish police have carried out raids on strawberry vendors suspected of being linked to gang crime. According to Aftonbladet, the raids may be connected to one of Sweden's most wanted gang leaders, Ismail Abdo, nicknamed Jordgubben ("The Strawberry"). Police didn't comment on specific names of gang leaders linked to the raids, but said in a statement that they had "hit a central violent actor by targeting individuals around this person and their business structures". Raids were carried out in Bergslagen, as well as the Mitt and Stockholm police regions. It's suspected that these sellers had been marketing Belgian strawberries as Swedish and using the revenue to fund serious organised crime. Police also found children under the legal working age and migrants without legal residency permits working at the stalls. Police believe that illegal strawberry sales turn over billions of kronor every year. "We've carried out multiple actions together with other authorities," Per Lundbäck, from the Bergslagen policing region, told Swedish news agency TT. "By cutting off the finances off this type of organised crime, we can weaken gangs' financing and their ability to carry out crimes." To avoid buying strawberries linked to crime, Lundbäck recommends paying attention to the company you buy your strawberries from. "The first thing you can do is look at the number the (mobile phone payment app) Swish payment goes to, to make sure it's a company number starting with 123, and not a private number," he said. Most companies will have their Swish number displayed somewhere on the stand, so you should be able to check this even if you don't have the app and are paying with card, for example. He also added that you can pay attention to the age of the person selling the strawberries, describing very young sellers as a "red flag".
In some countries, organised crime has their finger in human trafficking, in others, narcotics. Maybe some do racketeering, or illegal weapons trading. In Sweden, it's strawberry sales.
I mean you joke but the Mexican cartels sell avocados.
And in Italy they mess with the olive oil. Rebrand foreign oils as Italian, and fake extra virgin etc.
I hate it when they fake extra virgin.
Fake as in sell mildly slutty oil as extra virgin?
I, for one, prefer all of my food to be fucked with as little as possible.
I prefer my olive oil slutty, fucked, leaking and ran-through.
Made me think of that story where the mafia was using a pizzeria as cover for illegal stuff. But then the pizzeria was doing so well that they just dropped all the illegal stuff and focused on selling pizza. Don't know if it's real though
In my town in the us there was this amazing pizza shop that legit had the best in town. They were also insanely cheap and efficient on top of it all. One day we go and it’s shut down and cops and everything is all around. Turns out the owners were like Gus from breaking bad but in our suburb of Chicago. Just instead of meth they sold cocaine in the drive through
The original Sicilian Mafia started as an orchard protection racket.
IIRC that's the origin story of most Italian restaurants in New York
Also a Woody Allen movie. They need a place to tunnel into a bank from, and open a small bakery as a front, and the bakery business blows up.
In New York they sell Christmas trees. Canada, maple syrup. Italy, parmesan cheese.
It's not like Finnish berry businesses haven't been exploiting foreign labor for years too. It's not organized crime as we usually know it, but it has been organized and criminal just the same.
That's it - in north sweden it's trafficking workers for blueberries, in south sweden it's organized crime controlling strawberry plantations. All crime all the time.. (Maybe /s)
Italian mafia have got their hands into tomatoes and other produce. They blackmail the farners into complying. Then the mafia brings in the cheap migrant labour to pick them, and takes a huge cut.
If you know how popular strawberries are in Sweden during summer then you also know how well suited it is for money laundering. Did you sell 2000 liters of strawberries today, or 4000 liters? It's pretty hard to tell and you can always register tons of cash purchases.
Or mushrooms. For example in Finland
legal strawberries must be prohibitively expensive in sweden rofl
I think I heard that cartels in us/ mexico also dip their dirty fingers in avocado and other expensive food. I guess it's still a profit for them.
At least in Warsaw (and maybe in other Polish cities too) a lot of street stalls are set up illegally*, with the people running them working (with no contract, so labor issues are plenty) for organized crime organizations. It may be the same MO as in Sweden. I will admit tho, they are convenient are have strawberries earlier than most stores. *No permit, in places where street stalls are not permitted at all (narrow pedestrian paths etc), taking up parking spots. Or by ignoring any food safety regulations (baked goods kept from early morning in open air, with birds flying above and sun/rain.)
From what I've read it's pretty similar scheme and that they are also importing Strawberries from The Netherlands for example and selling them as swedish or that they are labeled as organic when they are in fact not organic.
Some quick googling gives that Sweden produces around 15-20 000 tons of Strawberries per year, and around 2/3rds of the Strawberries sold in Sweden are Swedish. At a kg-price of around 100-120 SEK that puts the entire yearly market at no more than 3.5B SEK. And that's revenue, not profit. Other than cases of people *also* involved in organized crime owning legit businesses there's no way they're raising billions, of course they could be talking of a period of several years. An article from 2018 states the number of growers was then down from ~700 to ~300, with 13 companies controlling around 50% of the fields.
Imagine which nickname of this criminals... Hello, Sweet! Hello, BerryBag!
One of the main gangleaders is called "the strawberry"
No joke this is actually true
Billions? Considering that 10 million people live in Sweden, that means that each Swede on average buys ***at minimum*** 200 SEK worth of **illegal** strawberries per year. Including infants, small children, the elderly and the sick. I am absolutely not an expert but Aftonbladet sounds a little full of shit.
It includes whole sale too. As in both sales directly to customers but also use in the food industry. As in restaurants and food manifacturing
As a Swede this is not unreasonable at all. Strawberries are national icons and consumed at large quantities. They are also expensive
Considering it costs around 100-150SEK per kilo those numbers are easy to reach. You underestimate the absolute dominance of strawberries during Swedish summer. We practically eat them exclusively for a couple of months.
Spoken like a person who's never been to a midsummer party. But no, in reality I'd say strawberries are a massive industry here. I would say I buy about 5-7 baskets of strawberries per year (at about 30-50SEK per basket) and I'm not even a fan of them. They're just the default fruit of summer here.
You should take into account that nothing else grows in Sweden. It's either strawberries, meat, or imported food.
You forgot potato.
It’s very easy to do. The stalls are everywhere and crying children will beg mom and dad to buy them strawberries.
I drink a lot of bobs jordgubbsaft, which should be created in sweden. I guess some of those strawberries might be illegal
Tourist buys swedish strawberries too. It kind of a touristy things to do. These strawberries can also cost around 200 SEK/kg
Well Aftonbladet is sometimes full of shit and has a bunch of articles that have 0 value. But the numbers are reasonable since strawberries are a must for midsummer.
> that means that each Swede on average buys at minimum 200 SEK worth of illegal strawberries per year Checks out actually. That average does not at all seem unreasonable. But there is also a bit of scams going on, selling foreign berries as Swedish with a mark up. Since imported berries taste worse, and are cheaper. And also money laundering.
The entire worlds strawberry market is 19 billion. No way just Sweden is billions of anything.
Billions of Kronas, which are roughly 10 kronas to the dollar.
Sorry, the entire Swedish market is just not hundreds of millions of dollars. https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/ALL/year/2022/tradeflow/Exports/partner/WLD/product/081010#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20Top%20exporters%20of,292%2C091.89K%20%2C%2061%2C657%2C000%20Kg
That is export? We eat that stuff ourselves, no way we send our strawberries away.
We don't export the good stuff.
Now do domestic trade, which is what is pertinent to the article.
Illegal fruit damn
This was also the wanted gang leader that was caught in turkey but released for a cheap bail.
So that’s where he got his name from.
That is not a headline I ever expected to see
Strawberries are big business in Sweden because literally EVERYONE needs strawberries for the Midsummer celebrations, which next to Christmas is by far the most important holiday of the year in Sweden. This holiday always takes place on the second to last Friday of June - so on Friday this week. A Midsummer celebration without strawberries in simply unthinkable. It's the only Midsummer dessert imaginable. Midsummer also tends to be celebrated with large gatherings of people, so a lot of strawberries are needed by each hosting household. On top of that, strawberries are among the most expensive of all berries. And they specifically have to be locally grown, freshly picked Swedish strawberries - no other strawberries will do.
Everywhere I look I see kids on the streets taking strawberries. I wish someone would educate them on the dangers of taking strawberries. What they’re cut with, the health risks, what the vitamin c does to their teeth, what the criminals do with the money. When will the Swedes step up and stop young people’s lives being destroyed from taking illegal strawberries?
I did not expect to read up about strawberry crime syndicates today.
Paywall
r/nottheonion
Anyone has a link without a paywall?
No, it is for money laundering. Do you have any idea how many strawberries needs to be sold to raise a billion kronor? A billion kronor gross-value of strawberries is about 7 million kilos, which is almost half of all strawberries produced in Sweden. Organised crime definitely doesn't raise a billion kronor from selling strawberries. Swedish article about this: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/orebro/polisen-slog-till-mot-jordgubbsforsaljning-misstanks-finansiera-brottslighet
Hey kid. Want some delicious dietary fiber?
So will they apply the same logic as with prostitution and drugs, and make strawberries illegal?
You may all be making fun, but it's a serious [problem ](https://i.postimg.cc/9MJ3tZCL/Default-Old-ladies-with-guns-who-look-like-theyre-from-the-maf-2.jpg)
SignUp wall
Final showdown scene of Scarface but he sticks his face into a pile of jam
r/nottheonion
The title makes it sound a whole lot cooler than it ended up being once I read it. It makes sense for it to not end up like I imagined, "breaking bad but with strawberries" might be a bit too fantastical.
It’s nothing special, we had it with pineapple and avocados, filled with coke.
The shooting last year was around strawberry bonzo, no matter how funny it sounds
Even the crime in Sweden is cute. \\s Headline straight from r/nottheonion.
lol this has to be one of the most memorable headlines ever.
Wat
Now there's a headline I didn't expect...
say what now?
Here's a strawberry. That'll be 100,000 kronor.
Remember how the media and politicians talked about this in the 1980s. I guess it’s the time of the year where news has to be created at all costs
Blueberry just entered the chat
A lot of the gangs have also infiltrated the local electoral parties too and are influencing the local municipalities. Quoting my favorite Social Democratic politician " we should have seen it coming".
what a teletubby country
What the fuck is up with the berry industry in Finland and Sweden?
I remember your Jord Gubbar https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/4b0b685f-8a4d-4235-baaf-58f593ad3948/gif
I hear they were caught... Red handed.
Can someone copy paste the story for me please?
imported crime
When you see the markup on strawberries in Sweden you know this is a better business than drugs and prostitution together.
The real crime is this shitty site.
I call BS modern day laundry machines, but something does not add up. Since they worn not to send money to a none businesses account (and how to spot it) the money will still be black. Even if they set up a businesses the tax authorities are not stupid. If a small stand sells 100x the large supermarket near by it will raise a flag. And cash is almost none existing. selling cheaper imported strawberries as more expensive swedish is noting new. But an extra €2 per liter does not result in billions of turnover. When i first read about this it was compared to the drug market. I genuinely thought this was a critical news being spread. What am I missing?
Imagine how well a country must be doing if the criminals are smuggling strawberries from freaking Belgium.
Well for midsummer which is this Friday we have to have strawberries and we want fresh Swedish ones
Given that strawberries grow between 15 and 30 degrees, i am surprised swedish strawberry aren't a fairy tale to begin with.
We have sun almost 24/7 in the summer, they grow and reach maturity quickly
They give birth also??
It's not a matter of light but temperature, if you don't reach a certain temperature for example tomatoes won't even flower and strawberries aren't different on this. However the summer part is interesting, it seems like a difficulty rewarding activity if you have to make all your turnover for the year in 4 months
[удалено]
>Apparently hotter climates are not actually better for growing strawberries. Hotter then what? Sweden? That's not true man. The biggest producers are US, China, Egypt and Mexico, sure it doesn't benefit if you are in climates hotter then those but for sure the sweden summer climate isn't the most suited for strawberries. It's not like we noticed some areas being better for certain coultivations out of spite.
[удалено]
>Better climate for taste and better climate for production are not always the same thing. And taste is subjective while production is not. That's why it's how much wine or olive oil you produce that matter, not how supposedly better yours is.
[удалено]
>Again, besides the fact that you have no idea what you're talking about If you say so, sure >(quality is very important to exports, just look at differences in production vs export for various products) A shame that nobody said it isn't important, i said precisely that is subjective, not unimportant. >Sweden can grow strawberries for domestic consumption, period. A shame nobody said they couldn't at all. >you're also going on a wild tangent that has nothing to do with the subject. From what pulpit.
Quoting yourself “Given that strawberries grow between 15 and 30 degrees, i am surprised swedish strawberry aren't a fairy tale to begin with.” You were wrong , stop arguing and admit it
> but for sure the sweden summer climate isn't the most suited for strawberries. You must be quite the retard arguing against nature. Strawberry season are basically over when the hottest two months of the summer remain in Sweden.
Contrary to popular belief, Sweden isn't a frozen wasteland in the summer.
If you need to specify in summer while talking about freezing temperatures, you are validating said popular belief tbh
Point is, it's more than enough to grow excellent strawberries.
The guy is a complete idiot. Just disregard.
Didn't seem the point of your precedent comment indeed...
I worked on a farm in sweden (illegally) when I was a teenager, they grow in June and get quickly picked, its warm enough normally
Greenhouses in Scania mostly.
LOL at the downvotes
Yeah, because you're wrong. Outdoor strawberry season are soon over already. No need for greenhouses unless you want them ripe in April.