Swedish CEO fraud took an estimated 214 million SEK — with no name check to stop it.

Sweden's National Fraud Centre publishes something almost no other European police force does: an estimate of criminal proceeds broken out by fraud type, including CEO fraud and business email compromise as their own category. For 2025 it puts VD/BEC-bedrägeri proceeds at 214 million SEK. It is a modelled estimate — average case value multiplied by case volume — not an audited loss figure, and the police say so.

The trend inside that number is the alarming part. In 2023, four people lost more than 1 million SEK each to CEO fraud. In 2024, thirteen did. In 2025, twenty-one did — and their combined losses came to 161 million SEK. The average case is getting dramatically larger, which is what happens when fraudsters move from consumers to companies.

Invoice fraud is counted separately, and it is a Swedish speciality. Brå records fakturabedrägeri as a distinct offence code: reported invoice-fraud crimes jumped 23% in 2024 to 10,007, and rose again in 2025 to 10,180 — the highest on record. Police proceeds estimates put unsolicited invoice fraud — the classic bluffaktura — at 105 million SEK in 2025, up 67% in a year. Svensk Handel's warning list saw publications rise 125% in 2025, driven by a hybrid scheme mass-mailing invoices to company functional inboxes like faktura@.

Sweden's banking industry is candid about why businesses are being targeted. Finance Sweden's own threat assessment states plainly that business owners "do not have the same basic protection against financial loss from crime as consumers" — and warns that as consumer-focused fraud gets harder, criminals are deliberately pivoting to companies, where the payoff per case is larger and the legal protection is weaker.

Företagarna's member survey finds that over five years, 44% of Swedish employer-businesses have been victims of crime — and bluffakturor, fake invoices, are the single most common crime type, ahead of theft and vandalism. Fraud exposure among its members rose from 41% in 2023 to 61% in 2025, and the share reporting an actual financial loss rose from 12% to 19%.

Brå's more rigorous random-sample survey of companies gives a lower figure — just over one in five companies exposed to fraud in 12 months, rising from 37% for solo firms to 83% for firms with 50+ employees. The two surveys measure different things and should not be blended, but they point the same way: exposure is normal, and it scales with size.

The Swedish position is unusually exposed. No name check on SEK transfers until July 2027, no reimbursement right after the Supreme Court's May 2026 decision, and the banking association itself acknowledging businesses lack consumers' basic protection. The verification has to happen before the payment leaves — which is exactly what PayHQ does, checking each incoming invoice against the supplier record your team verified and holding a changed account for review.