Islamist leaders are fleeing Sweden after benefiting from over a billion kroner in government welfare funding while leaving behind SEK 33 million in unpaid tax debts, Swedish newspaper Expressen has revealed in a damning exposé.
Radical networks linked to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the United Muslims of Sweden (SFM) bagged state funding for schools, preschools, and daycare centers, which were used to recruit extremists and spread Islamism, Expressen reported November 19.
The revelations pose critical questions for Sweden’s generous welfare system, long considered a model for progressive social policy. The exposé is also reigniting the debate of an ethno-religious “parallel society” in Sweden.
Sweden has made every mistake imaginable—and is now paying the price.
“It’s like a double loss. The welfare money disappears, and we don’t get the welfare that we have paid for with our tax money,” said Henric Fagher, Chief Prosecutor at the Economic Crimes Authority in Gothenburg. “Someone else steals the money and enriches himself.”
Swedish Welfare Kroner Siphoned to Somalia
Fagher’s investigation of an Islamist school made news in 2021 after he charged former Swedish MP and the leader of the Islamist National Unity Party (NUP) in Somalia, Abdirizak Waberi, with embezzling millions of taxpayer funding for his political activities in Somalia.
Waberi, the founder and longtime principal of the school, redirected SEK 13 million ($1.5 million) using fake invoices and accounting fraud to cover his tracks, Fagher’s probe revealed.
Expressen has confirmed that Waberi’s operations consisted of four licensed schools in Gothenburg and Borås. The Islamist leader, who also spent the welfare money on numerous sex club visits in Thailand and trips to luxury hotels in Southeast Asia and Nairobi, is serving a prison sentence of four years and six months. He still owes Sweden SEK 6.1 million.
Waberi served as vice president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), which has been described as “the overarching organization” for Muslim Brotherhood groups in Europe, Focus on Western Islamism (FWI) earlier reported. He was also on the board of the Muslim Council of Sweden, which is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood through the FIOE.
Swedish media reported that Waberi’s National Unity Party was founded by Muslim Brotherhood operatives who seek to “advance the global conquest of Islam” and “reestablish the Islamic Caliphate.”
Islamist Flees to Egypt After Transferring Funds to Malta
While Swedish authorities shut down the schools, Islamists in the network have also tried to fleece the taxpayer through assistance companies, from accommodation for unaccompanied refugee children to other tax-financed businesses, Expressen reported.
The daily named Abdel Nasser el Nadi, principal of Gothenburg Science School, who transferred SEK 4 million to an account in Malta. The government decided to deport the Salafist imam after he was found to be a threat to national security. He relocated to Egypt and is being pursued by the Swedish Crown Enforcement Agency for tax debts of SEK 5 million.
Fagher said that the Economic Crimes Authority’s probe into Islamist schools began with Lär och Lek preschool in Angered, Gothenburg. In June 2020, the preschool for 70 children was shut down after Fagher found that a school representative had funneled SEK 545,000 in grant money from the school to the United Muslims of Sweden via a football club.
The report further identified Rabie Karam, Hussein al-Jibury, Abo Raad with his son-in-law, Mohammad al-Kotrani, and Eva Freih with her husband, Wasim El-Jomaa, as ringleaders in the Islamist schools scam network.
School Funding Funneled to Islamist Outfit
The preschool Lär och lek AB in Gårdsten, run by Freih and El-Jomaa, received just over SEK 30 million for preschool activities between 2016 and 2020. On 14 occasions, cash was transferred from the school to the non-profit sports association Andalus IF and transferred from there to the United Muslims of Sweden, where El-Jomaa served as chairman.
Behind all three accounts was Wasim El-Jomaa, who ran the preschool with his wife Eva Freih, with al-Kotrani as accountant and financial advisor, Expressen reported. Wasim El-Jomaa was sentenced to ten months in prison and a three-year business ban for three cases of serious accounting crimes.
In 2024, al-Kotrani and Rabie Karam were convicted of financial fraud at the Nya Kastets school in Gävle for moving money between the network’s various companies to show better finances that would get politicians to approve the school for tuition fees. Al-Kotrani received a three-year counseling and business ban.
However, the Expressen investigation showed that al-Kotrani has continued his business in the same municipal-owned premises in the Gårdsten district of Gothenburg. Data from the Swedish Companies Registration Office shows him in charge of at least 20 companies after the business ban came into effect.
A preliminary investigation is currently underway against al-Kotrani for using a false identity, as he reported a person as a new board member in the accounting firm he used in several of the network’s companies, as per the Expressen report. Al-Kotrani, who owes Sweden SEK 2.1 million in tax debts, is absconding and is alleged to have emigrated to Turkey.
Sweden Fails to Act on Warnings of Islamist Welfare Scams
Al-Kotrani is listed as a “director” and “person with significant control” on the board of Belle London A&M Ltd, a dormant company registered in the U.K. The U.K. government companies register shows al-Kotrani as “Swedish” but “living in England.”
Karam, who is wanted for serving an eight-month prison sentence and is being sought by the Swedish Enforcement Authority for tax debts of SEK 5 million, has reportedly fled to Egypt.
A report titled The Muslim Brotherhood’s Pan-European Structure warned in 2021 that the Brotherhood was exerting a “substantial influence” in Sweden and Islamists were benefiting from the country’s “policy of very pronounced multiculturalism,” which “generously subsidises organizations that purport to advance the interests of minority groups.”
Moreover, Sweden’s public debate has arguably been characterised by a high level of political correctness, making it easy for Brotherhood-linked actors to label any criticism of their activities as bigoted,” the 280-page report observed.
“The risk of uncritically allocating resources to MB-associated organizations is that they influence the integration process negatively in that they want to protect Muslims from influence by the majority society by building up a parallel Islamic sector of public bodies, a so-called Muslim civil society,” a study published by Malmö University has warned.
Kent Ekeroth, a former Sweden Democrats MP who has written for FWI, said the scandal was the predictable result of decades of political naivety.
“None of this should surprise anyone. For years, Sweden’s extraordinarily permissive immigration policies—and the political culture surrounding them—created the perfect conditions for this kind of exploitation. We have admitted large numbers of people from regions where corruption is endemic, then bent our own institutions to accommodate the very cultural patterns that produced dysfunction in their countries of origin.”
Ekeroth added, “At the same time, Sweden’s generous welfare model, lenient criminal law, and desperate political push to ‘integrate’ newcomers led to minimal scrutiny of payments, subsidies, and permits. The demographic shift created by mass immigration only increased the incentives for these networks to exploit the system.”
“In short, Sweden has made every mistake imaginable—and is now paying the price,” he added.
All accused Islamists in the report have denied criminal involvement.
