LAPD Step In To Protect Whistleblower Victor X

Posted by: KHTS Articles in News Articles September 10, 2020 - 1:50 pm 0 84,911 Views

Most policework is never seen, publicized or appreciated. Only controversial cases make headlines while countless examples of bravery and heroic actions by police are overlooked.

An asylum-seeking whistleblower who is running for his life has had the opportunity to see officers from the Los Angeles Police Department take on danger head-on while truly protecting and serving his safety and life. Victor X, formerly Victor Carlstrom, spoke up about financial crimes being committed in his home country of Sweden and soon had threats on his life. He fled to the United States, first to New York. But an incident in which he was being followed in the Big Apple prompted a move to the Los Angeles area.

According to a lawsuit Victor X filed in late 2019, the following events brought him in proximity to Los Angeles’s finest: Victor was a regular pool-side guest at the Los Angeles hotel where he first stayed, until one day when his security detail spotted another person photographing or videotaping Victor with his cell phone. There appeared to be a second person monitoring Victor as well. The Los Angeles Police Department was then called.

The LAPD assessed the situation, working with hotel management to determine that one of the men observing Victor entered the hotel through a restricted area, the lawsuit reads. The police then determined to move Victor to a hotel close to the Los Angeles International Airport.

The following day, a journalist who traveled to the hotel to interview Victor noticed two men watching Victor’s room. Victor’s security detail also noticed the men. The journalist, Victor and a security official quickly left the room, rushing through the hotel lobby and boarded the shuttle for the airport. The two men who had been watching Victor’s room also boarded the shuttle, without any luggage. These accounts are according to both the lawsuit and the journalist’s online discussion with Victor.

After arriving at the airport and evading the men, Victor again engaged with the Los Angeles police. Officers interviewed him and the journalist and escorted Victor through the airport to a terminal. The officers suggested taking a flight with a connection, to limit any chances of being followed, Victor says.

“In order to protect my life, my safety, these Los Angeles Police Department officers put their own lives at risk,” Victor X said. “They did not hesitate to offer me help and insisted that we do certain things to ensure further levels of safety. I feel as if they saved my life and I cannot say one bad thing about the LAPD; I hope all police officers everywhere are appreciated for the job they do.”
Following those harrowing two days, and upon the police suggestion, Victor began changing locations two or three times a week.

Those after Victor’s life could be connected to Swedish banks, or governments of Sweden or Turkey, so the work of the LAPD was particularly dangerous, whether the specific officers were aware or not. After being fired, Victor discovered that his boss, Jens Henriksson was connected to a corrupt financial system that is monitored by his long-standing friends, many from Henriksson’s college days, according to the lawsuit.

Henriksson went from the company Victor worked for, Folksam to become the CEO of global giant Swedbank, in order to clean up a separate money laundering scandal. He assembled a team of 15 employees to destroy Victor personally and financially, and according to the lawsuit investigations from government agencies were levelled against Victor and his companies, not the banks who committed the $150 billion money laundering scheme.

Immediately after reporting the involvement of a high-level government official from Turkey, Victor began receiving death threats from telephone numbers in that country, according to court documents

After fleeing to the US and seeking political asylum, Victor’s wife and children left him for their own safety. Having lost everything, he points out, it was the work of the LAPD that in large part allowed him to keep his life and start over.