Published on •Updated
A Swedish prosecutor charged a man on Monday with aggravated pimping, assault and multiple rapes after he allegedly sold his wife’s sexual services to over 120 men.
The 62-year-old man was arrested in late October after his wife reported him to police in northern Sweden, and he has been held in custody since then.
According to the charge sheet, the man had for years benefitted financially from pressuring his wife “to perform and submit to sexual acts”.
The man was accused of creating ads online, setting up meetings, keeping guard and pressuring the woman to perform sexual acts online in order to attract more clients.
He was also accused of being violent and threatening her, exploiting her fear of him and taking advantage of her drug addiction in what the prosecutor said was “ruthless exploitation”.
The charges also detailed several threats made to the plaintiff, with some of them including warnings about unleashing “the monster”.
Prosecutor Ida Annerstedt said in February that authorities had identified some 120 individuals suspected of having bought sexual services.
The incidents were alleged to have occurred between August 2022 and October 2025.
In addition to being charged with aggravated pimping, the man, who denies the accusations, was also charged with eight rapes.
They include one incident with a client and several incidents where she was made to perform sexual acts on herself.
He was also charged with four attempted rapes and four assaults.
Silvia Ingolfsdottir, a lawyer representing the woman, told the AFP news agency the charges resulted from the “serious and aggravated crimes” her client had been a victim of.
“She now hopes to obtain justice,” Ingolfsdottir said in a text message.
According to public broadcaster SVT, the man had previously been a high-ranking member of biker group Hells Angels.
The broadcaster also said the trial had been preliminarily scheduled to start on 13 April.
Parallels with Pelicot
The case is likely to be compared to that of Gisèle Pelicot, the 73-year-old French woman lauded as a feminist icon for waiving her right to anonymity in a multiple rape case.
Between 2011 and 2020, Pelicot was drugged and raped by her husband Dominique and dozens of other men while she was unconscious.
She became aware of the abuse in 2020, after her husband was arrested for upskirting women in a supermarket, and a subsequent police search of his computer showed images of her being raped.
Her case transfixed France and attracted significant international media attention.
Pelicot has since become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence, and the shocking case spurred a national reckoning over rape culture in France.
In July last year, she was given France’s highest award, being named a knight of the Legion of Honour ahead of France’s Bastille Day.
Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while sentences for the other defendants ranged from three to 15 years imprisonment.
Additional sources • AFP
