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Expressen has featured in several articles about the recycling company NMT Think Pink, whose owners, Bella and Thomas Nilsson, and their environmental advisor, were arrested on September 15 on suspicion of a serious environmental crime.
According to the prosecutor, they dumped and buried construction waste in various places in Sweden instead of recycling it. According to attorney Thomas Bodström, his client Bella Nilsson denies the crime.
– It will appear that he is innocent, has said Bodström about the case.
Hired Tommy Lindström
Now Expressen can reveal that Bella Nilsson has hired the former head of the National Criminal Investigation Department, Tommy Lindström, for investigative duties. Previously, she was involved in several of Sweden’s most important criminal investigations, including the murder of Palme and the coup against the Museum of Modern Art.
Today he is legal advisor at his company Rättskonsulterna and says that Bella Nilsson contacted him last year.
– He hired me as an investigator. I observed how he felt about relations with the municipalities of Botkyrka and Västerås. I visited their facilities there and met people from the municipalities, says Tommy Lindström.
“Pressed from different directions”
– It felt good pressed from different directions. I was angry with the municipality of Västerås. I think it was also heavily used by competing big recycling companies because it pushed prices, he says.
He visited Think Pink’s waste facilities in Skultuna in the municipality of Västerås and in Tumba in the municipality of Botkyrka. There, he and other representatives of Bella Nilsson met with the municipality’s environmental inspectors when the facilities were inspected.
– Tommy Lindström and two others from NTP (NTM Think Pink) participated in our inspection at Skultuna in May 2019. We wanted answers to some questions about the amount of debris and about a protective wall they had built. We did not agree on all points, says health and environmental protection inspector Ronald Houben.
Ban on more waste
Marianne Lidman Hägnesten, Director of the Health and Environmental Protection Administration in Västerås, was not involved in the inspection, but later learned that Tommy Lindström had participated and declared that he was “a famous person”. Regarding the information that Bella Nilsson had been “angry with the municipality,” she says:
– We supervise the installation. They were ordered to take certain precautions. Subsequently, they were prohibited from importing more waste. They appealed, but we were right.
According to Tommy Lindström, the disagreement between the municipality and NMT Think Pink was due to different interpretations of the regulations. He says that in May 2019 he was also on a similar inspection of the NMT facility in Tumba in the Botkyrka municipality on the outskirts of Stockholm. Botkyrka’s environmental director Åsa Svärd confirms that he was present during that inspection visit.
Called for questioning
Lindström explains that he started working for Bella Nilsson in April 2019 and that the work was intensive over the summer. The last contact was in late December 2019, he says.
– In August 2019, Bella Nilsson was summoned for questioning by the Västerås Police on environmental crimes. I told him to bring a lawyer and to answer all the questions, says Tommy Lindström.
– I was surprised when they arrested her later. During the time I worked for her, there were no grounds for arrest and prosecution. When I dropped everything, there was no environmental crime in the image, she says.
Extended detention period
Bella Nilsson’s company, NTM Think Pink, has left huge mountains of trash in various places in Sweden. Sampling has shown metal toxins, and in two different places the waste started to burn on the same day.
Prosecutor Kristina Persson has now requested an extension of the detention period to press charges.
THINK OF PINK HERE
September 12: Owner couple Bella and Thomas Nilsson and one other person were arrested and arrested for a serious environmental crime.
September 15: The trio are arrested on suspicion of a serious environmental crime.
16 of September: Expressen counts the huge mountains of unsorted rubbish from Think Pink in Röfors on the outskirts of Laxå, Dannemora in Östhammar municipality, Botkyrka in Stockholm, Hova in Gullspång municipality, Kjula in Eskilstuna and Skultuna in Västerås municipality.
Expressen also reports on how the company’s environmentally hazardous waste causes major problems at a garbage station in Laxå and how neighbors complain about noise and dust.
September 18: Climate and Environment Minister Isabella Lövin (MP) comments on Think Pink’s waste management information that emerged in Expressen’s review: “Really reprehensible,” says and opens to strengthen police investigative capacity on environmental crimes.
September 19th: Expressen recounts how Think Pink must have used a bulvan in the 1980s for its landfill in Dannemora.
September 20: Expressen reveals how Think Pink has used two consultants who had previously been convicted of serious crimes, including arson and widespread tax fraud. The consultants also worked for the LMAG company, which was involved in the battery scandal that resulted in four men receiving prison sentences earlier this year.
September 25th: According to the police, the waste has been dumped on several private farms. “They left 50 tons of plastic and paper,” a landowner tells Expressen.
September 28: The prosecutor requests an extension of the detention period. She says the company not only dumped waste, it also buried it.
READ MORE: Prosecutor: The garbage has been buried in the ground
READ MORE: Large concrete piles are connected to Think Pink
