SWEDISH MEDIA. Lansforsakringar Bank closes the Swedish e-zine Nya Dagbladet’s bank account and also the two editors’ private accounts. The attack on Nya Dagbladet is massive. The crime? Nya Dagbladet has written positively about Russia and was about to receive financial support from a US foundation.
For over a month, Lansforsakringar Bank has locked Nya Dagbladet’s bank account for foreign payments, which has left the newspaper and the media company insolvent. Lennart Devette Käll leads the bank that threatens the freedom of the press according to Nya Dagbladet (nyadagbladet.se).
The attack has been justified with a “lack of customer knowledge” and the bank has referred to laws that are in fact intended to prevent organized money laundering and “financing of terrorism”, writes Nya Dagbladet in one article in a series of articles about Lansforsakringar Bank’s attempt to crush the newspaper.
After an extensive so-called “customer awareness request”, where the bank came in with demands for the accounting of hundreds of receipts concerning everyday transactions (e.g. the purchase of bananas), the media company chose to fully comply with the request with the help of authorized accounting consultants.
Lansforsakringar Bank (site) has now announced that the media company’s bank accounts will be closed permanently. This is despite the fact that the bank received all the information requested and was unable to point to any shortcomings in the accounting.
It is noteworthy that Lansforsakringar Bank wrote in a letter that the reason is that someone at the bank “read on Nya Dagbladet’s website” that they accept donations in the form of cryptocurrencies even though the media company never engaged in cryptocurrency trading within the bank at all.
“It is clear that this is not about any real “customer inquiry” at all from the bank’s side, but about a targeted attack on the newspaper where they only use pretexts to deprive us of the opportunity to conduct business where a functioning bank account is absolutely crucial”, says Markus Andersson, responsible publisher.
Lansforsakringar Bank also carries out the threat to close down the newspaper management’s private bank accounts despite having received all the accounting requested, material prepared by authorized accounting consultants before being sent to the bank.
During the autumn and winter, a series of events linked to the media company behind Nya Dagbladet took place in relation to the bank, writes Nya Dagbladet’s CEO.
“There are now many indications that several illegalities may have been committed by the bank. Among the more serious ones is that bank secrecy may have been breached. Those responsible must therefore be exposed and held accountable,” writes Markus Andersson.
The real reasons for the bank attack
NewsVoice has noticed that Nya Dagbladet tries to keep a neutral or positive outlook on Russia as a neighboring country per se. The problem is that Swedish politicians, mainstream media, and authorities constantly hammer the Swedish people with negative images of Russia as part of the ongoing hybrid warfare aligned with Washington’s and NATO’s policies.
But there might be a more obvious reason for the bank attack. The Swedish Expo Magazine, a hardcore left-wing channel writes that The US-based and Elon Musk-funded Future of Life Institute, run by MIT professor and Swedish citizen Max Tegmark, offered a grant of $100,000 to finance Nya Dagbladet.
Expo portrays Nya Dagbladet in a hit-piece* titled “Elon Musk-funded nonprofit run by MIT professor offered to finance Swedish pro-nazi group” as a far-right extremist e-zine but the allegation is not founded in reality since the driving force behind Expo seems at times to be pure hate for everything “right”.
It’s common in Sweden that all opposition to the current socialist government is claimed to be far-right, extremist, or even worse. According to Visual Capitalist Sweden is one of the most polarized countries in the world.
The grant was terminated along with the bank accounts.
By Torbjorn Sassersson, NewsVoice
*hit-piece, “an article, a documentary, etc. that deliberately tries to make somebody/something look bad by presenting information about them that appears to be true and accurate but actually is not” – Oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com
Sources
- Nya Dagbladet: Länsförsäkringar fullföljer hotet – stänger av tidningsledningens privata bankkonton
- Nya Dagbladet: Chockbeskedet: Länsförsäkringar stänger Nya Dagbladets bankkonton permanent
- Nya Dagbladet: Sannolikt att Länsförsäkringar Bank begått flera olagligheter – nu väntar en omfattande granskning
- Nya Dagbladet: Så har bankerna förstört livet för tusentals svenskar
- Expo: Elon Musk-funded nonprofit run by MIT professor offered to finance Swedish pro-nazi group