Malta pension fund fraudster gives UK police the slip

A Swedish businessman accused of having defrauded the Maltese pension fund Falcon Funds has disappeared, evading an extradition to face criminal charges in Stockholm.

Emil Ingmanson, real name Max Serwin, gave British police the slip after spending nine months under house arrest.

Interpol has issued a wanted notice for the 41-year-old, whose €1.2 million Sliema apartment was seized after his former Maltese collaborators sued him for damages.

Ingmanson was the promoter of the Maltese pension fund Falcon Funds – which was marketed only in Sweden as a private pension – but he used his influence with the fund’s investment managers to use the cash for loans to Swedish companies.

According to a KPMG analysis presented to the Maltese courts, the money was invested in complex investments that hid the illiquid assets beneath layers of other liquid investments.

Ingmanson left Malta soon after the Falcon Funds bust, which left its Maltese directors to carry the can, among them former finance minister Tonio Fenech.

He was later found by Swedish TV4’s Cold Facts team in London, where he denied having defrauded the fund.

Soon after he was arrested at Heathrow airport in London, he was yet to be extradited to Sweden to face criminal charges for having defrauded Falcon Funds. Nine months passed since then, and Ingmanson was confined to a 10pm-7am curfew and was electronically tagged.

But on 5 November, on the day a London court had to rule on his extradition to Stockholm to face charges, Ingmanson went missing and had the electronic ankle monitor forcibly removed. Swedish reporters said the alarm was not activated, effectively giving him three days to disappear before a wanted notice was issued, and then only in Britain and not across Europe.

“British police have been looking for him at several addresses. But there is no trace for him,” Swedish prosecutor Arne Fors, who has been investigated the Falcon Funds fraud for two years now, said.