On Sunday, the investigative judge of the Riga City Court imposed extradition detention on Autio. Autio has agreed to publish.
The prosecutor will make a decision on the person’s extradition from January 20 to 22, the LETA agency was informed by the prosecutor’s office. Then, within ten days, the accused will go to Finland. The deadline depends on how quickly the representatives of the Finnish authorities will come after him.
The Baltic investigative journalism center “Re:Baltica” previously reported that Autio, who owned properties in Latvia, wants to be tried in Finland in the country’s biggest corruption scandal.
At the time of his arrest, Autio was with his daughter, in whose name his Riga properties were registered. “She called me and said that Arto was detained, but nothing more,” said his former employee Sergejs Vorts to “Re:Baltica”.
The special prosecutor of the Southern Finland Public Prosecutor’s Office, Timo Haikonen, confirmed to the public media “YLE” that Autio was detained on the basis of a European arrest warrant. Finland has already requested his extradition.
Finnish citizen Autio has been convicted of tax fraud in Estonia. In the neighboring country, he attracted attention with real estate deals with the Center Party.
In Finland, Autio is one of the main defendants in the case of defrauding the Youth Forum (JF). This organization established a real estate network in Finland in the 1960s. They are cheaply rented to young people and families under the age of 30 who have recently started working and cannot afford to buy them. Autio has been accused of organizing and giving bribes, accounting crimes, and embezzlement. As a result of these actions, JF suffered losses of several tens of millions of euros, while companies related to Autio earned millions.
The other figurants of this case have already been convicted, but Autio escaped and lived in Belarus for several years with ambition, writes “Re:Baltica”. It does not extradite criminals to Finland, and legal cooperation has effectively stopped since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Finland had asked to include Autio on Europe’s most wanted criminals list.
Perhaps a part of Autio’s fraudulently obtained money ended up in Latvia. “Re:Baltica” previously found 14 Autio family properties worth 12 million euros in the land registry in Riga. The properties were bought through companies then owned by Autio, but now transferred to his daughter.
Autio’s properties in Riga were investigated by “Re:Baltica” together with “YLE”, noting that before that there was no information about the Autio family’s properties in Latvia. Thanks to the whistleblower, they managed to escape. He first reported them to the Financial Intelligence Service, and then to “Re:Baltica”.