Icon property company trial begins – 400 victims and 40 million euros
A suspected investment fraud case involving Vaasa-based property company Icon has advanced to the Ostrobothnia district court. The case involves seven defendants and nearly 400 injured parties.
Icon affair goes to district court – 50 trial days ahead
The trial concerning suspected misuse by Vaasa-based property investment company Icon began at the Ostrobothnia district court on 26 August. Yle News reported that the affair that led to the company's bankruptcy is exceptionally broad: there are nearly 400 injured parties or potential victims, and investors' money is estimated to have disappeared by at least 40 million euros.
Icon was marketed at the time as a property fund for the whole nation. Ordinary private individuals and institutional investors directed tens of millions of euros to the company before Icon went bankrupt in 2019. That same year, police launched an investigation.
Yle's crime correspondent Jyri Hänninen has been following the case for several years. He recounts first noticing the bankruptcy news in 2020, but after an internal tip began investigating more carefully where investors' money had ended up.
– Oddities began emerging from the company, such as large consultant fees that had in some cases been paid to Estonian letterbox companies, Hänninen says.
According to Hänninen, Icon's managers had also sold their own properties to the company, and at the same time several unclear related-party transactions came to light. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of euros in consultant fees had been paid to the managers themselves – money that investors had intended for property acquisitions.
– If money is collected from investors to be invested, but instead the money is used to pay hundreds of thousands of euros in fees to managers, then of course it raises questions. What is the motive for the operation and is the money being used properly, Hänninen muses.
In Yle's MOT department investigation, it emerged that millions of euros ended up with the fund's founders through questionable means. Hänninen believes the case is also partly international, as money has been directed to Estonian companies.
The district court has allocated 50 trial days for the main hearing, which according to Hänninen is an exceptionally large number. Hearings are held three days a week until the end of the year, and the main hearing continues into January next year.
Seven of those charged are currently in the dock. Some of them continue to work in the property or investment sector. The exact scope of the police investigation will become clear at the beginning of the trial, when the pre-trial material and indictments become public.
Hänninen regards the Icon affair as exceptional on a nationwide scale in Finland.
– It is genuinely a unique case, he says.
He estimates that the case will later proceed to the court of appeal, and not all parties will be satisfied with the district court judgement. According to Hänninen's assessment, obtaining a final judgement could take as long as ten years.
– That is of course an unreasonably long time for victims or people subject to criminal charges. These processes take too long in Finland, Hänninen states.
Source: Yle Uutiset