The company, which made itself in innovative solutions with LED lighting, seemed to have a bright future. Among other things, the company had been praised by the state’s financing fund, Vækstfonden.
Even the then Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt praised the innovative Roskilde company from the rostrum of the Folketing.
But in 2016, the police launched an investigation, which was to uncover that there were a number of shady activities in the LED company.
There was fiddling with accounts where orders that had not actually been made appeared as if they were. And more investors were ready to inject money into the company in the form of corporate bonds.
Among other things, the police stumbled upon an agreement with Starbucks Europe in Switzerland and another agreement with the Italian optician chain Salmoraghi & Vigano.
Lars Nørholt was later convicted in city and county court for having defrauded the pension funds Pensam and Pension Danmark and others for DKK 562 million.
In addition, he was convicted of stabbing several millions in his own pocket. This happened, among other things, in the form of the purchase of properties in Mallorca. All in all, Nørholt got Hesalight to pay him 55 million kroner. For that he is known guilty of mandate fraud.
Nørholt had appealed the case to the Supreme Court in the hope of receiving a milder sentence. The sentence of seven years’ imprisonment is among the most severe, given in Denmark for economic crime.
Only Stein Bagger from the collapsed IT-Factory has received an equally harsh punishment.
The Supreme Court states in the justification for the sentence that no mitigating circumstances have been found in the case at all. In return, there are a number of aggravating.
Among them, Nørholt’s central role in the case is that his crime was planned and systematic, and that he had appropriated a large amount of money.
– It is a case with extensive and very serious fraud for over half a billion kroner, and I am very pleased that the case has now been put to an end with one of the harshest sentences given for economic crime in Denmark, says accuses Anne Riisager of the Attorney General in a press release.
Nørholt has been convicted of criminal law provisions on fraud, mandate fraud, VAT fraud, debtor fraud and forgery.
Source: The Nordic Page