The destiny of the pirate ship shakes the ground of the justice state
In Kokkola, the police facilitated a theft of the pirate ship owned by Finnish-American Karl Lindroos. He was later prosecuted for confiscating the same ship.
In 1978, Karl Edmund Lindroos, 73, moved to Florida and made the American dream a reality. He was to become the owner of the largest private owned memorabilia of Elvis Presley, a rock legend.
Already in Finland, Lindroos was a successful furniture dealer, and later he amassed a fortune in real estate business. A part of his wealth and the Elvis Memorabilia, including some rock performances, were up to be brought to his hometown Kokkola as a magnet at his Pirate Park with some Disney spirit. The tourism project, which initiated in 2010, was to become a subject of a collusion by his opponents. Due to these actions, he was singled out as a target for negative attention by the Finnish authorities, and both his health and wealth collapsed.
The financial problems of Karl Lindroos initiated by an error made by the authorities. It was related to the value added tax of the hotel ship Pirate at Pirate Park. The inflated inspection took totally from early 2011 to late 2013.
The tax issues were assumed to be cleared and finished by the summer of 2014, when Lindroos returned to his childhood town, Kokkola. In Florida, there was only one massive real estate selling procedure left to be closed. It was supposed to be his ‘retirement fund’ in Florida prior to moving permanently back to Finland. Before that, Lindroos were taking care of some daily errands related to his Pirate ship in Kokkola.
Lindroos traveled from Florida to Kokkola, Finland, and went to biking leaving his home in Alaveteli early in the morning June 24, 2014. His spouse Nina and two sons were still sleeping.
At the same time, a group of police officers at the Kokkola branch of Pohjanmaa Police Authority were preparing to catch Mr. Lindroos. The new chief of the Financial crime inspection department, police lieutenant Kristina Boholm was initially re-opening the old inspection focusing the unclear issues around Lindroos’ taxes. Already before, lieutenant Boholm had been involved in the investigations in which two of her predecessors and supervisiors had made a decision and not to proceed, due to a lack of any evidence for any criminal action. The similar decision was made by IRS, the U.S. tax authority.
Instead after she was promoted, Boholm turned her back to her predecessors and decided that there were hints of an criminal act in Lindroos’ actions and therefore ordered two police patrols to drive to the Lindroos residence. The patrol cars met Mr. Lindroos biking at the Sjöbacka intersection, two kilometers from Lindroos’ home.
A group of police officers equipped with guns and bullet-proof vests emerged from the cars shouting: ‘Leave your bike there! You are a suspect of a felony level tax evasion!’ Boholm logged the stand-off time as 9.40 AM, and at 10AM she called to judge Liisa Männikkö and demanded the arrest of Mr. Lindroos.
It’s Police! Open the door!
Karl was seated in the car and he was driven to his home door. ‘It’s Police! Open the door” We have the home search warrant!’
The police officers raided the house in the American way. Karl’s wife and the sons were awaked terrified. What’s going on? The boys were ousted from the house. One police officer was guarding outside and preventing anyone to visit the cars parked outside. At 9.50am Boholm called and ordered two police officers to arrest also Nina Lindroos. At 11.00am Boholm called the prosecutor and expressed to want also Nina jailed. Karl was seated at the end of the table, guarded by one officer and his wife was ordered to another room under surveillance of another police officer.
The police confiscated Karl’s both passports, the Finnish and the U.S. one. The search took six hours and was also attended by a money detecting K-9 which was brought from Oulu. Finally, nothing was found.
At 3pm, Boholm gave an order to officer Jari Särkiniemi to confiscate several Lindroos’ items during the home search.
Several folders, documents, phones, computers, and notes were brought to the police station. The Vaasa-based bailiff officers were listing and taking photos of the repossessed tangibles like valuables, statues, paintings and furniture.
After the house search, The Lindrooses were transported separately to the police station prison in Kokkola.
At 5.45pm, Karl’s interrogation was initiated by officer Teuvo Nissilä. The suspect announced to be retired, and his military rank was a corporal. He preferred the interrogation to be in Finnish. He said he do not know the law very precisely. “I have lived outside of Finland for 36 years”. The topic of the interrogation was the purchase and restoration of the ship ‘Pirate’, as well as the transactions of the corporation which Lindroos owns, ‘KOK Palvelut’.
The interrogation ended at 8.19pm, and then Boholm arrested Lindroos at 8.44pm. A minute later, she also logged in Nina being arrested and the guard directed her to the prison cell. According to the law, the police should have informed the U.S. Consulate about the arrest of Lindrooses. Boholm did not do it. Nina Lindroos was not interrogated, she was guarded along with Karl, as well suspected about the same criminal acts – however, as an innocent outsider – which was the case later admitted by Boholm.
The arrests were based on the ‘felony level tax fraud’, which was faulty stated by police lieutenant Boholm at the end of 2010 when the Finnish corporation of Karl Lindroos inquired the tax authorities to refund the almost 200 000 euros of paid value added tax, related to the Pirate ship.
(It was later found out that Boholm was wrong in her inspection process. On January 26, 2016, the Helsinki Administrative Court made a judgement, that the Lindroos’s corporation was entitled to demand the VAT refund.)
The Police Initiated a Tangle of Crimes
Next day, the lady, who stepped into Karl’s cell, made a Bond-styled introduction. I am a Lead Inspector Boholm, Kristina Boholm. At 1.40pm Karl was told that the arrest order is being processed. Karl’s second interrogation began at 4.25pm. It covered over and over again the VAT refund of the Pirate Ship to KOK-Palvelut corporation.
Police Lieutenant Kristiina Boholm had initiated a multi-layered financial crime.
The former assistant of Mr. Lindroos, vice chancellor Erkki Jääskeläinen had turned his back to his client and, with his perjuries, encouraged the Kokkola Police to attack Lindroos. The first unfounded claim was registered on June, 17, 2014. Jääskeläinen inquired to have the promissory notes for Pirate, even when the sales amount remained partly unpaid, and full payment was the condition of the endorsement of those promissory notes. Jääskeläinen asked police to reach out Lindroos before he leaves for the United States. Jääskeläinen announced that, `at the moment, Lindroos is in Alaveteli, where his wife owns a single family home.` Later, Jääskeläinen lost his case at the court.
Two days later, Mr. and Mrs. Lindroos along with Boholm were in the front of judge Liisa Männikkö. Boholm was supported by police lieutenant Juha Koistila. Boholm demanded that judge will arrest Karl and Nina Lindroos for six months, first during the upcoming pretrial investigation at the police prison and later on in Oulu or Vaasa penitentiary. They were suspected for criminal actions during the tax inspection which was executed in 2011-13.
Karl Lindroos was assisted by Mr. Reima Raappana, a lawyer. He emphasized the arrest procedure being unnecessary, because there was not an imminent danger for the evidence to be destroyed. The material had already been at the possession of the authorities for years. About the tax inspection, everything was already documented.
Boholm was in favor of Karl’s arrest because of a possible escape out of the country. According to her, Karl did not have a residence in Finland. However, their home was searched not so long ago. Lieutenant Boholm had her grounding also for the arrest of Nina based on non-residency in Finland, even when Nina’s home address in both Finland, and the U.S. were noted in the arrest report by Boholm herself.
Karl Lindroos was surprised about the demand for his arrest. The matters were cleared. He voluntarily assisted during the investigation. He told that he is 67 years old and sick person, who needs constant medical treatments. Furthermore, a knee operation was scheduled for him in Florida.
Lindroos highlighted, that the same tax matters have been up already for the fourth year now, he had been subject to taxation only in the U.S. where the taxes were fully paid, and the taxation of KOK-Palvelu corporation was in the order. The tax treaty between Finland and the U.S. prevents the dual taxation.
The suspected felonious crime focused on a barge named Light-house, which was a hull for the Pirate ship, a hotel vessel. The total expenditure was 1,146 million euros, which should have not subject to a value added tax and thus that amount should not be paid. The bookkeeper accidentally paid the tax twice, which caused a confusion. The tax authority did not agree to revise, even when the error was acknowledged. Thus, the Lindroos corporation did not receive approximately 400 000 euros, which worsened its payment capability.
At the court, Lindroos clarified the 557 000 euros of labor and material costs paid via the U.S. corporation. The tax authority accepted only 100 000 euros for the expenses. This way, the Lindroos corporations abroad were seen evading the taxes by using the paid covered dividends.
(Supreme Administrative Court solved the case of VAT refund in the favor of Lindroos in 2018. The state has not refunded the payment).
The court judge accepted Boholm’s demand and Karl Lindroos was arrested. However, the demand for the arrest of his spouse was not accepted. It was seen to be extortionate. Silently, the judge freed her immediately.
Karl Lindroos was shocked of the judgement, and his health was ailing. Boholm was able to hold him at the Kokkola Police Penitentiary for two months, until August 21, 2014.
The criminal inspection led by lieutenant Boholm was expanded from a VAT dispute all the way to the U.S.A. In no time, there were 11 other suspects and the monetary amounts were getting larger, up to millions.
(All of them were freed without a trial, except Karl. In 2016, he was sentenced to a probation and banned from any business operations for unpaid source tax which was past due. Due to his ailing health, he was not able to attend the procedure of appealing at the Court of Appeals. For some reason, his legal assistant did not furnish the court with the doctor’s certificate, which could have allowed the postponement of the court dates. The equivalent tax of 16 000 euros was paid in the U.S., and the receipt had been send to Finnish authorities and justice department.
Holistically, the parallel and concurrent investigations have produced thousands and thousands of pages of documentation, which have been processed at different juridical phases for six years.
A Marathon in New York
Karl Lindroos was born in Kokkola, Finland, but later he has been an ’americanized’ real estate developer, who has resided in the Palm Beaches, Florida since 1978.
He became world-famous with his Elvis Presley memorabilia, which was, for some time, the largest one in the world, excluding Graceland, which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the United States, and is second only to White House.
The Elvis Memorabilia has publicly been seen i.e. in New York, London, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Manchester, High Chaparal (Sweden), Beatles Museum (Liverpool), Bally Casino (Las Vegas), Kemi and Naantali (Finland), as well as in Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki, Finland, where it was adjacent to the Elvis the Musical. In Kokkola, the Pirate Coast exhibition was smaller, because a remarkable part of the genuine items were stolen during the transportation. Those items have not been seen anywhere for 10 years.
Elvis Presley’s motorbike has been the most popular item, which has been touring in Europe a lot.
Karl Lindroos purchased Elvis Presley’s motorbike in 1982. He was forced to sell it in New York in the fall of 2019, due to some financial difficulties.
It was Elvis’s Harley Davidson Lindroos laid his eyes instantly on. During his vacation trip, he saw the bike by coincidence at an automobile auction in Phoenix, AZ. The famous brain surgeon Lonnie Hammargren from Las Vegas, NV was the seller. Lindroos was able to buy the bike from him without any middlemen for 10 000 dollars. He borrowed 2000 dollars for the down payment from his travel companion, and paid the remaining amount later. The bike was transported to Florida by a truck. Amidst the economical difficulties, Lindroos was forced to sell the bike at an auction in New York at the end of 2019.
From both sides of the Atlantic, Karl was admired but also envied for his trade skills. Following his father’s, Helge’s, footsteps, Karl was a wealthy businessman in Kokkola already at a young age. Best results were achieved with furniture sales and real estate.
Because of his friend turned bitter towards him, Karl was a subject for an appraisal tax in 1977. He experienced the situation as a random act by the authorities and estimated that he cannot fulfill the obligations for FIM 30 million with his corporate turnover of only FIM 12 million.
In 1978, he sold his property in Finland and moved to Florida, USA, where an appraisal tax has never been implemented in practicum. Due the demands implied by European Union, also Finland was forced to discontinue the appraisal tax.
In Lake Worth, the center of Finnish region in Florida, Lindroos learnt a new language, new habits and begin a sporty and healthy life.
Lindroos finished a few marathons, including the New York Marathon. In 1983 he was a champion of the track and field triathlon among over 35 year olds. The hardest contestant in 100 m run was the legendary Finnish singer Eino Grön, also a wrestiling champion. He had bought a winter residence in Florida.
In a few years, the life turned be better in Florida. The gossips and large tax payments stayed belonged to the previous homeland.
Sometimes, Karl was an eyewitness when some tax criminals were deported from Lake Worth neighborhoods back to Finland. Karl’s door was not knocked for that. Lindroos received the U.S. Citizenship in 1986, which would not have been possible if he had previously committed a crime. Karl visited Finland first time only 1991 and attended his son’s wedding. He wanted to make sure that he has no unsolved matters with the tax authority.
Such Elvis goods were to be exhibited as part of a department on a ship in Kokkola Pirate Park.
Arrested for taking his own ship to his possession
Karl was a 67-year-old retiree and sitting in the Kokkola penitentiary on June 30, 2014. It was really hard for him. He could not understand that he was suspected to have taking his own ship to his possession.
Based on Erkki Jääskeläinen’s criminal report on June 20, Police lieutenant Boholm believed that Karl has confiscated his own ship. Untruthfully, Jääskeläinen stated that Lindroos would have stolen the Pirate ship from. He claimed to have bought the ship in the fall 2013. Later on, the court assumed Jääskeläinen’s crime report to be unfounded.
The situation was an amusing one. Jääskeläinen claimed the legal owner of the ship to be a thief, in order to get the ship into his possession in a fraudulent way. He did not have any ownership with the ship.
A bit more than a half of a year ago, the former regional director of Turku tax authority, Mr. Jääskeläinen had been hired by Lindroos to assist him with the tax clearances. Vice Chancellor Jääskeläinen was forced to leave his high position after he was convicted for committing a crime. He assisted Lindroos in the transaction, where the ship sold to an Estonian corporation RDevelopment, owned by a businessman Rami Virtanen, whom Jääskeläinen knew.
Virtanen was having some serious financial problems. more than one million euro was being levied, they were mainly tax debts to Finnish government and a personal bankruptcy was looming in Estonia. He was involved in tens of corporates in Finland and Estonia, where he was driving them also by-passing the persons in charge, sometimes even without those persons were aware of that kind of actions.
During the police interrogation, on June 24, 2020, Virtanen claimed that he does not remember the corporations he is involved with. He said to the police that he has nothing to do with BP Icon. However, it was Virtanen who bought a real estate from a widow suffering a dementia. This transaction took place in Parainen, Finland in May 2014. The real estate was sold at an undervalued pricing by Erkki Jääskeläinen, then a trustee for the widow. Later, the transaction was dissolved and Jääskeläinen was sentenced to a probation, which was discharged by Supreme Court in Turku in May 2020.
Also the purchase of the Pirate ship by the agreement on November 11, 2013 was not valid, because Virtanen was not an authorized person to buy the ship, and he did not have any position in RDevelopment corporation to execute the transaction.
Jääskeläinen betrayed his client Lindroos and started to act for Virtanen, his fellow. The criminal report he left at the Kokkola police, he aimed that he does not need to pay the agreed amount. It will be snatched from Lindroos with only the paid down payment. At the same way, all other agreed payments were left unpaid, including the ship transport from Kokkola to Tallinn.
The total sales amount was 375 000 euros, including the down payment 200 000 euros. The paid down payment was only 180 000 euros and the remaining 175 000 euros remains still unpaid. Also other agreed expenses remain unpaid, i.e. towing from Kokkola to Tallinn 50 000 euros and some harbor charges. In June 2014, when Jääskeläinen demanded the ship to himself, there was an amount of 250 000 euros still unpaid.
The plot of stealing Pirate was a success, when the Kokkola police and lieutenant Boholm assisted Jääskeläinen and Virtanen at the timepoint where Rami Virtanen had infringed the agreements and not paid the agreed amounts. Then the ship was still under Lindroos’s ownership and responsibility in Kokkola, where it was to be towed no later than June 30, 2014, when the towing towards Tallinn began.
‘Sales transaction’ made by a protocol
The plan about the pirate themed park was published in Kokkola in April 2010. The idea was based on the adveture film ‘The Pirates of the Caribbean’. Everything seemed promising, but soon there were some persons who were against the plan and they managed to dilute the master plan. Karl was forced to cease the execution of the plan.
Rendering of Pirate park 2011. The flagship Pirate in the middle, ‘Hullu Helmi’ (left) and the horror ship ‘Mystic Wind’ (right). KLK.
Lindroos sold four ships to the company of businessman Toivo Sukari. Sukari had his own plan worth more than 15 million euros to build a pirate themed experience destination, adjacent to Ideapark, Lempäälä, Finland. The venture collapsed for a lack of funding already in the autumn 2014.
In the Kokkola pirate park, the most magnificent ship was the hotel ship Pirate which was built in Poland 1975. There were 16 cabins available. The ship was imported from Sweden to a camping site for accommodation use in 2006 under the name ‘Lighthouse’. In 2010, Lindroos bought the ship in 2010 on the behalf of the hotel corporation he owned. He changed the name into ‘Pirate’ and did a makeover for a luxurious hotel ship.
Since the summer of 2011, Pirate was vacant and empty in Kokkola. The corporation owning the ship faced some financial difficulties. For about two years, Karl tried to sell his ship to out of country, as to Russia, Sweden, Germany, and Honduras. The sales process was difficult. Even an offer made during a TV show did not attract buyers. The potential buyers did not have a good business location available in adjacent to massive traffic volumes.
In the fall of 2013, Lindroos got the partners in Tallinn and thus sold the ship and its location agreement on November 2, 2013 to Mr. Rami Virtanen, who claimed to represent an Estonian RDevelopment corporation. The buyer had to transport the ship to Tallinn. This what Lindroos assumed, based on the agreements. In addition to the sales amount, Lindroos’s corporation was to receive a rent from the business location for the ship.
However, already in December 2013 Jääskeläinen abandoned his client, Lindroos, and went to assist Rami Virtanen. In the ’sales agreement’, which was drafted by Jääskeläinen on November 2, 2013, there were some errors and omissions, of which Jääskeläinen intended to use for his own benefit. With the time, it was revealed that Virtanen lacked even the authority to purchase the ship on the account of the company mentioned in the sales agreement.
Instead of holding on with the agreement, Virtanen and Jääskeläinen began to take the ship further off from Lindroos. They entered in a mutual sales agreement of a ship which neither of them owned. Jääskeläinen ‘transferred’ Pirate to another Estonian corporation without a sales agreement. Pirates ownership was just “stated” during the board meeting of Virtanen’s freshly new corporation General Partners, which took place April 14, 2014 in Tallinn. At that time, the ship was still in Kokkola under the ownership of Lindroos’s corporation, because the sales amount had not been paid. This detail did not bother Jääskeläinen, who created ‘the transfer documents’ in Tallinn.
In the transaction, no funds were transferred, ‘the sales’ was just logged onto minutes. The legal impact of this kind of a procedure is the same if someone would write a note to his/hers notebook concerning someone else’s car, register the car to him/herself and when the legal owner of the car will refuse to surrender the car, blames him/her to be a thief. Then alerts the police to confiscate the car on his/her behalf and lock the de facto owner in the jail. The hijack described above has so far been a success.
It was a real embezzlement. The ‘transfer’ of the ship was unlawful and not valid.
When Lighthouse was turned Pirate, the leading expert was American Bruce Dundee, pictured at Suntinsuu Marina in 2010, next to the ship. KLK.
The fading process of the ownership was steered by multiple transfers among several corporations in a way, that already in July 2014, the ship had been passed to the Virtanen’s inner circle, under the British corporation, Capew Ltd, owned by Virtanen’s uncle, Mr. Teppo Lahtinen. According to Register of Vessels, the Pirate’s owner was Lindroos’s corporation.
Non-validated transfers were blurring the fact, that the ship was – and still is – unpaid to Lindroos’s corporation. The original purpose of those transactions seems to be the avoidance of the sales amount to be paid.
Karl Lindroos hired workers to transport the ship to Nauvo in the summer of 2015. KLK.
Kokkola Police doesn’t understand
Between June and October, 2014, Lindroos was interrogated eight times for taxation and the Pirate promissory notes, as well as ten times for the ownership dispute. The interrogations did not proceed. The same matters were discussed over and over again. The incapability of Kokkola police was strange, they did not realize by going through the documents, that it was not Lindroos who stole his own ship.
Boholm and her assistants would have immediately stated, that a valid sale of the ship had not been executed in the benefit of Jääskeläinen, who introduced himself as an owner of the ship. However, Jääskeläinen had made an attempt to register the ship under his name, but Traficom rejected the registration.
The ship sale professionals, Shipsforsale Finland Oy and its managing director, Mr. Jarmo Viitanen witnessed that the Jääskeläinen’s ‘Bill of sale’, is not valid. This causes that the next transfers are not valid either.
During an interrogation, Jarmo Viitanen clarified to lieutenant Boholm, that the owner of the Pirate ship was Lindroos’s corporation.
It did not have any impact on Boholm’s behavior, instead she continued with the preliminary investigations by assuming Lindroos to be guilty. Boholm and prosecutor Lilja Limingoja pursued a prison sentence to Lindroos. One year after Lindroos was arrested, on June 24, 2015, the District Court of Central Ostrobothnia acquitted Lindroos from all the charges, which were initiated by the perjury made by Jääskeläinen.
Rami Virtanen appeared at the court as a plaintiff demanding the Pirate ship to RDevelopment, which board has only one member, Terho Virtanen, Rami’s uncle. Terho Virtanen later told to police that he did not know to be a board member, nor anything about the ship deal. He had not authorized Virtanen nor Jääskeläinen at any point to represent the corporation. The lawful plaintiff, what comes to Pirate, was only Karl Lindroos. For the perjury he made and as a reimbursement for the task, Jääskeläinen demanded 20 000 euros and 200 000 euros for the Estonian corporation. The court rejected his claims, paralleel to the suit for the felonious embezzlement and fraud.
In the summer of 2014 Jääskeläinen sought police help to repossess the unpaid ship. Lieutenant Boholm assisted Jääskeläinen massively, even though police did not have an authorization to act in that matter. The ownership dispute belongs to a court.
Police intercepted the ship transport
Mr. Lindroos brought many times to the attention of lieutenant Boholm, that according to Traficom Ship Registry, the owner of the ship is Lindroos’s corporation. Boholm did not change her mind, but instead saw Lindroos as a criminal and executed the police operations immediately by giving out an order to confiscate Lindroos’s ship from himself.
Boholm’s order was: ‘The hotel ship Pirate’s voyage will be intercepted for a confiscation. The exit of the Finnish territorial waters will be blocked. If needed, Pirate will be towed to a suitable location.’
Boholm justified her order by stating that ’Lindroos is suspected of a felonious fraud. The ship will be confiscated in order to clarify the ownership’. The police order was a strange one, thus one party was charged for a fraud even when the ownership right was only to be clarified!
Next day, on July 1, at 8.09am, the police signaled to the captain of the ’Kemi’ tugboat, that there are some details related to police investigations, and the ship must be towed to Latokari. At that timepoint, the ship was in the front of Turku, close to Kustavi, approximately 450 km from Kokkola.
At 5.20pm, the ship was in Latokari marina and ’was confiscated by the police’. The police executed the confiscation based on Mr. Jääskeläinen’s perjuries. The ship was then located at the harbor bayou of the Southwest Coastguard.
After the ’confiscation’ of Pirate’, Boholm made Karl Lindroos’ name, a felonious fraud, and the confiscation public. Boholm demanded Lindroos’s arrest based on Jääskeläinen’s perjury. The arrest period continued.
The first interrogation related to the ship fraud took place on July 4, 2014 by officer Teuvo Nissilä, who wrote down: ‘Karl Lindroos is being interrogated as a suspect for a felonious fraud’. He was suspected of an unlawful transfer of the ship. Nissilä emphasized that ’according to the information the police has received’, Lindroos’s corporation KOK Palvelut has sold the ship.
’What do you comment about the aforementioned crime suspection?’, asked Nissilä. Lindroos replied: ‘I am fully innocent, and that is really a perjury against me.’ After one year, in the summer 2015, the district court gave him the same verdict: innocent.
The media was keeping a close eye on the ship and Finnish Broadcast Media (YLE) reported on July 10, 2014, that the district court will extend the arrest period of the ‘owner of Pirate ship’. It was the owner, whom Boholm believed to be a thief!
YLE reported that the district court extended the arrest period of businessman Karl Lindroos and the investigation leader Boholm said to investigate Lindroos’s actions during the years 2008-2014. In addition to the ship, she said to have confiscated also other Lindroos’s property. Boholm emphasized that the tangle of crime is holistically large one and the investigation can reach the U.S. and even other countries.
After all this, Karl’s clients and partners in the U.S. knew how is it with businessman Karl Lindroos, he was jailed as a financial criminal in Finland. The publicity served by Boholm caused a shutdown of Karl’s business ventures in the U.S. People and funding started to avoid him when the arrest became a news item also overseas in the U.S. It was a hard hit and the end for his international ventures.
Karl Lindroos inspecting the ship ’Elbe’ from the II World War era. It was supposed to be a playground ship for kids and the location for the large Elvis Memorabilia. KLK.
Police lieutenant handed the ship to the thieves
On October 24, 2014 at the district court, Boholm requested for four months more for the confiscation and preliminary investigation in order to prosecute Lindroos for felonious fraud of the ship, based on her understanding that Lindroos criminally initiated the transfer of Pirate abroad.
Boholm proposed an extension for the confiscation period practically so that the police would release the ship and the holding rights will be surrender further as it was right before the felonious fraud, i.e. as of June 29, 2014, when the owner was Lindroos’s corporation and which was the holder as well.. At that timepoint Lindroos gave an assignment to Idäntie corporation to tow Pirate to Tallinn, Estonia.
On October 30, 2014, the district court ruled as Boholm suggested, that the ship must be returned to its owner and holder as it was on June 29, 2014. However, the district court did not specify the owner at that time.
It was like a sigh of a relief to Lindroos and his peers. Finally, at least something went on the track. But a surprise followed immediately! Boholm send a message to Coast Guard that the ship must be handed over to Jääskeläinen!
Lindroos assumed that it is just a misunderstanding. Therefore, he sent an e-mail to Boholm on October 21. He asked her to correct the process and notify the Coast Guard, that the ship must be handed over to Mr. Erik Nylund of the Idäntie shipping company and immediately to be transported to Tallinn, Estonia, as the court had judged.
Boholm replied via e-mail: ’It is not a misunderstanding. It’s a fact. The holding of the ship will be as it was before the suspected felonious fraud. In this case, and when the confiscation is still in power, the keys will be handed over to Jääskeläinen. Greetings, Kristina Boholm.’
Police lieutenant made her decision against the district court. All those involved know that Jääskeläinen never had any rights to the ship.
Lindroos tells that he later went to Boholm’s office and asked ’why did you do wrong when handing over the ship’s keys?’ According to Lindroos himself, Boholm replied that ’otherwise I would have confessed to be wrong all the time’.
With an assistance of lieutenant Boholm, the theft of Pirate Ship was finalized in Turku, Finland, where Coast Guard had been overseeing the storage period for police since July 1, 2014.
On December 8 2014, Mr. Erkki Jääskeläinen signed the Pirate documents as a recipient and an attorney, even though he has never been a member of Finnish Bar Association. Printed on the document of holder, made out by Southwest Border Guard, says that the ship ’is approved and received and the hazardous responsibility has been transferred to Erkki Jääskeläinen, as stated in the e-mail received on October 30, 2014.’ In the hands of Mr. Jääskeläinen, Pirate suffered damages estimated for hundreds of thousands euros during the winter 2014-15.
The entire Elvis collection covered more than 200 items as cars, guns and outfits. At some timepoint, the collection had an appraised value over 15 million dollars.
Perjuries coming like from a moving belt
The court released Lindroos from any ship related charges on June 24, 2015. After three weeks from that, Erkki Jääskeläinen made a new criminal report. He asked Turku police to inspect if there was any crime when Lindroos transported the Pirate Ship. He grounded his report with the same issue he had lost at the court just a moment ago. On July 16, 2015, he required police to investigate the towing from Ramstedt shipyard, where it was surrendered to Jääskeläinen, based on the order made by Boholm.
Once again, Jääskeläinen indicated the guilty person to be Lindroos, ’who would have misled a female office assistant to hand over the keys, against the specific embargo.’ – some old documents, which indicated – according to Jääskeläinen, with no doubt – that Lindroos does not have any kind of ownership or holder rights of the ship.’ The Turku police did not believe that collusion anymore, even though it was a trustworthy one in Kokkola. ’The history of the ship is well known among the Kokkola police, and especially investigation lead Kristina Boholm knows it’, was written in Jääskeläinen’s statement.
He requested again police assistance in order to pass the ship ‘quickly to the possession of the right owner’, to General Partners corporation he represented.
Jääskeläisen’s investigation request was immediatedly rejected by Mr. Teijo Ristola, criminal police captain at the Southwest police based in Turku. He did not detect any crime – totally opposite to Boholm a year earlier in Kokkola. Ristola also denied the police assistance to clarify the ownership of the ship. This way, lieutenant Boholm should have acted a year earlier.
Jääskeläinen was not satisfied with the results. He tried to approach authorities and demanded the Center Ostrobothnia district court to verify the ownership to General Partners corporation. This attempt was not a success.
Jääskeläinen still on November 24, 2015, representing General Partners, demanded police to assist him ’in order to receive the ship under the right ownership’, because General Partners was the right owner, according to him. Captain Teijo Ristola rejected Jääskeläinen’s request once again only three days later.
The dispute over the ship’s ownership was legally filed on September 22, 2015 in Turku the Varsinais-Suomi District court as Maritime Court. After one year, on December 19, 2016, its verdict was that the owner of Pirate ship is the corporation represented by Lindroos.
General Partners corporation appealed to the verdict, even when it was not a plaintiff, and therefore the court should have rejected the appeal. Turku Court of appeal did not do so but revoked the judgement and granted the ownership to General Partners. This judgement was not legally possible, because General Partners never owned the ship. The strange judgement was prepared by Emmi Koiranen as a referendary, and ruled unanimously by Leena Virtanen-Salonen, Juha Laaksonen and Virpi Vuorinen.
After Maritime court, Lindroos transported Pirate to Tallinn in the spring of 2017. After Turku court of appeal made its judgement, the associates of Jääskeläinen and Virtanen came omboard and took over the ship in the summer of 2018.
In the fall of 2019, Pirate was rotated by using Rami Virtanen’ uncle Teppo Lahtinen as a middleman to under a new ownership. Since already June 2014, Erkki Jääskeläinen had been making attempts to register the ship under his own name, but the application was not approved. After the verdict made by Court of appeal, the registry of vessels received a notification on April 8, 2018, that Pirate (register # 12415) ownership has been transferred to General Partners. Because it was impossible to register under an Estonian corporation, there was a clearance period of one and half years, which ended on September 12, 2019 in the favor of ELF Invest Oy when Mr. Teppo Lahtinen bought Pirate on the behalf of the corporation from General Partners and Teppo Lahtinen.
The ship formerly known as Pirate had its Grand Opening in the summer of 2019 renamed as Pirate Ship Victoria. During winter season 2021 ship has been stored ashore nearby Tallinn harbor.
Counter investigation did not lead anywhere
For Karl Lindroos, the Pirate voyage has been a heavy experience. During the process, his health and economy collapsed and his ship has been taken away without an agreed sales price.
In Finland, the efforts to get Pirate ship back to its righteous owner were rejected because of the complaints and reports have been standing still on the investigators’ desks. The suspected of malpractice: Boholm, Virtanen and Jääskeläinen have been innocent, according to the authorities.
In example: Lindroos reported Erkki Jääskeläinen for a faulty denunciation in July 2015. Only in the spring of 2019 the Ostrobothnia Police decided to leave Jääskeläinen non-prosecuted. The decision was based on the transport of the ship on April 14, 2014, which was ratified the legal receiving by Turku court of appeal in April 2018.
The report of Kristina Boholm’s malpractice was filed in October 2014. The decision of non-prosecuted was delivered by Ms. Jaana Nyrhinen of Ostrobothnia Prosecutors office only on March 25, 2019 – with a delay of less than five years. Prosecutor Nyrhinen based on the judgement of Turku court of appeal on April 6, 2018. Prosecutor did not find plausible causes to prosecute Boholm of anything. Boholm was bothered with only one interrogation at Kokkola police station on May 2, 2017. Boholm was avoiding questions and appealed not to remember. The interrogator crime inspector Tommi Wahlroos was satisfied with a little.
This all reveals the authorities’ attitude: Boholm was interrogated nearly three years after the report was filed, when Boholm herself acted immediately in order to confiscate Lindroos’s ship after Mr. Jääskeläinen’s perjury in the summer of 2014.
For Jääskeläinen and Boholm, a groundbreaking investigation was not executed for the events the report pointed out. Instead, police inspected some irrelevant events which took place four years after the main event. This was used to state the illusion, that Lindroos did not suffer any damage arising from Jääskeläinen’s and Boholm’s actions. The way authorities acted, it looks like a ‘white cleaning’ referring to a non-plausible investigation, which aims to purify the suspect.
The documents of the numerous court proceedings reveal remarkable controversaries when interpreting the law. The same evidence have been interpreted with contrary judgements. In the summer of 2018, Lindroos’s attorney Pekka Ylikoski tried to abolish the judgement, which, so far, was a faulty one and judged by Turku court of appeal. The Supreme court did not approve the re-trial. It would have provided the highest possible clausula if a theft can be a legal way to transfer the ownership of a property item. This kind of juridical securement was not an attractive option to the Superior court.
This way the judgement of Turku Court of appeal was in power, in that the ship was surrendered to the ’buyer’ who succeeded to receive a valuable ship without paying the agreed sales amount. The transaction was sealed by a Finnish court. The agreed sales price and expenses implied, Lindroos’s corporation was to receive total approximately 500 000 euros in the summer of 2018.
Erkki Jääskeläinen send a statement on September 24, 2018, where he confirmed, that the remaining amount of 175 000 euros mentioned on the sales agreement (November 2, 2013) should have been ’paid to my client Karl Lindroos, or the entity he had defined’, The amount was never paid off mainly because of the ‘transfers of the ship’ made by Jääskeläinen himself.
Karl Lindroos in his kitchen in Alaveteli home, Finland in December 2020. There are the documents piled which were the output of the first preliminary inspection executed by Kokkola police in 2014: total 1166 pages, weighing 6 kilos (approx. 12lbs). The total amount of the inspection and court proceeding documents is thousands of pages. PS.
As an Maritime court, the Varsinais-Suomi district court judged on December 19, 2016 that the ship belongs to the corporation Lindroos represented. At Jääskeläisen’s home field, in Turku, Court of appeals made a totally opposite judgement on April 6, 2018. It was based on the same evidence. Court of appeal believed in Virtanen’s stories and based its decision on the date April 14, 2014, ‘the transport’ of the ship, when Jääskeläinen handed the ship over to General Partners, which belonged to Virtanen’s inner circle – and it was valid, which it lawfully actually cannot be. However, Court of appeal abolished the judgement of Maritime court.
It was peculiar, how the court specified Jääskeläinen’s position, which contradicts other and even with Jääskeläinen’s own stories! Jääskeläinen confirmed to be just some kind of a middleman.
Attorney Pekka Ylikoski wrote in his appeal that the judgement of Turku Court of Appeal reveals the emphasis on Virtanen’s and Varik’s stories when evaluating Jääskeläinen’s right to transfer the ship to General Partners corporation. ‘Because the false statements were in the center, the judgement has a servitude.’ The lawful groundings are also missing from the judgement.
Court of appeal did not pay any attention to the detail, where General Partners as early as in the fall of 2017 had brought up their opinion, that the corporation did not own the ship. Furthermore, in the winter of 2015, Jääskeläinen presented another entity to be the owner of the ship, not General Partners, whom the ship was seen to be transferred as in the Court of appeal judgement on April 14, 2014!
According to Ylikoski, Court of appeal was not reluctant to evaluate the facts but instead has based its judgement mainly on the statements made on the behalf of General Partners.
The judgement at the Court of appeals is deeply contradicting the judgement at the Marine Court. For the same ‘transport’ of the ship on April 14, 2014, Marine court judgement was: ‘The arrangement between General Partners and Jääskeläinen has been an attempt to transfer the ship to Virtanen without paying the remaining sales amount.’ And that what happened; the ship remains unpaid.
Furthermore, Marine court stated: ’To certify the ownership for General Partners, would certify a legal status, to where the buyer has intentionally aimed at by a breach of a contract and proceeding the way which can be evaluated nearly by criminal justice.’
Marine court stated that the ’proceed, where a party acts intentionally against all previously agreed, cannot be legally protected’, but Turku Maritime court provided a juridical protection to ’the transfer’, despite of all documents provided and in contrary to the law.
How was this possible?
After three lost court cases and four criminal reports later stamped as perjuries, Jääskeläinen’s party still wanted to appeal at Turku Appeal of court, in their hometown. Did they trust on their own influence in the city?
At the Court of appeal, the situation was strange. Rami Virtanen’s attorney Mika Haavisto was admitted to represent General Partners as a plaintiff. That corporation has never had an ownership nor thus a right to be a legal party. Therefore, the Court of appeal should have never taken the case.
Due to a process error, the Court of appeal provided a courtroom to Haavisto and Rami Virtanen for their own presentation. One of the basic statements was that in ’the transfer’ on April 14, 2014, the Estonian corporations involved are separate and independent corporations. This one was accepted by the court – however the transfer was not legal, no matter who owned the corporations.
In March 2018, attorney Haavisto asked his client in the courtroom, Virtanen, who was there in the role of a witness, if there are some agreements between RDevelopment and General Partners, ’other than indicated in the official documents’? Virtanen replied: ’No’.
When Haavisto asked, has Virtanen indirectly owned General Partners corporation entirely or partly, Virtanen replied: ’Never’.
The documents obtained at Estonia Trade Registry reveal that Virtanen did not speak truthfully. He covered the fact, that he owned both corporations in the background. The information was available for Lindroos’s assistants in the spring of 2019, after the judgement made by Court of appeals.
According to the registry, in the summer of 2014, Virtanen and his partner Mikk Varik owned BP Icon corporation, which owned BAP Service corporation, which General Icon corporation, which was the owner of both General Partners and RDevelopment corporations.
Later on, when processing his bankruptcy at Harju court, Estonia, Virtanen said that he sold his shares in RDevelopment corporation to his uncle Teppo Lahtinen, a London resident, on October 30, 2014, for a sales price 658 280,40 euros, which is an astonishing amount for a corporation, which pretend not to be capable to pay off the remaining amount of a 175 000 euros and other lesser costs for the Pirate Ship.
In the process at the Court of Appeal, the police and Lindroos’s party suspected Virtanen and Varik for a faulty sworn-in. The prosecutor, who led the investigations for 2,5 years, was replaced only a few days before the judgement. The fresh prosecutor Ms. Alma Valpas decided on November 3, 2020 not to go further.
The statements Mr. Virtanen provided at the court, are directly linked to the plausibility of the juridical system, and thus aiming at Republic of Finland.
Right after winning the case at Court of Appeal, Rami Virtanen was involved in other wide fraud inspections. The police inspected Virtanen’s participation in 40 million euros gathered from nearly 3000 investors. The MOT television program with an investigative approach reported about suspicions focusing on Virtanen. The program was aired on June 28, 2020. ‘Icon was intended to become a real estate fund for entire nation. Now police suspected its founders for financial crimes. Millions of euros invested by investors ended up to the founders.’
Some shady bank transfers were made to some Estonian drawer corporations and in the winter of 2019, some fraudulent transactions came forward; they were related to the other founder of Icon corporation, Mr. Rami Virtanen’s actions.
In December 2019, Icon Kiinteistörahastot and its subsidiaries filed a bankruptcy. ‘Now the investors are about to loose their money’, reported the MOT tv program of Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE).
In the case of Pirate Ship, it is shocking how widely were Rami Virtanen and Erkki Jääskeläinen able to fool the Finnish justice system and authorities.
Pirate after a makeover into a Pirate Restaurant Ship Victoria. It was opened in Tallinn, Estonia in the summer of 2019. merirosvoravintolalaiva Victoriaksi avattiin Tallinnassa KLK.
The tangle of events started from the VAT (sales tax) payment due for KOK Palvelut corporation is now at the point, that the amount due was in January 2021 total 5114,32 euros, mainly consisting of a leveraged tax of 4600 euros administrated in 2019.
Police lieutenant Boholm was able to keep Lindroos locked up for 2 months, until August 21, 2014. The Ostrobothnian district court led by judge Lilian Grönlund, freed Lindroos, because of his ailing health. However, Boholm demanded him to be jailed. When that was not possible anymore, Lindroos was prohibited to travel and he needed to surrender his passport to police, even though it was already arbitrary confiscated during the home search. Lindroos needed to stay at his home in Alaveteli daily between 8pm – 7 am and to report every day at 10am at the Kokkola police station. The travel ban ended on December 19, 2014.
The travel ban caused massive financial losses because his American counterpart used that situation for his own benefit when dealing with a sizable real estate sale. Lindroos was unable to be present to make the deal go through in Florida. The blocked business ventures caused losses in millions.
Because of his damaged reputation, Lindroos was forced to sell his properties and estate. In example, he was forced to auction the majority of his Elvis Presley Memorabilia for drastically discounted prices and thus to suffer great losses. Previously, the estimated value of the collection was no less than 15 million dollars, according to an expert.
Karl Lindroos at the home terrace in Alaveteli, Finland in the fall of 2020. The serious illness has slowed him down and the support of a chair is needed.
Pirate remains unpaid
At the Turku Police station on December 17, 2019, Erkki Jääskeläinen was interrogated and he told the essential of those documents is the fact ’that 175 000 euros is still due from RDevelopment to a corporation to be established by Karl Lindroos.’ It remains unpaid with all additional costs as of March 2021.
Because the required sales amount was not paid off in the fall of 2013, and nor afterwards, so according to the sales conditions, the Pirate Ship has not lawfully and in a validated way been transferred out of Mr. Karl Lindroos’ ownership. By the judgement made by Turku Court of appeals and the tricks made by businessmen operating out of Estonia, the ship has practically been transferred in a way, where the justice system has been abused as a part of a crime.
Only time will tell if the United States will interfere with the property losses of its citizen, caused by Finnish authorities.
Mr. Lindroos is still suffering from nightmares, where the Kokkola Police is grabbing him and his family out of the bed in the morning. ‘You are arrested!’ There is police lieutenant Boholm laughing behind the unknown police officer.
’It was such a disturbing event, that it will never be erased from my mind, even though an outsider can laugh at it’, says Lindroos and considers if to surrender the Finnish citizenship, because it has recently brought along mental suffering and financial losses, which caused the collapse of his health.
The rewarded police lieutenant Kristina Boholm can be assumed to be on a disability pension, based on her weak memory in 2017, when she was interrogated as a suspect for misconducts. Totally opposite! In October 2020, she began also to lecture at the Police University College.
The Pirate park in Kokkola was to stage the Elvis Exhibition with memorabilia and imitation shows. Some of the Elvis outfits were stolen in Kokkola in the summer of 2011.
Pirate was constructed by using ideas from HMS Bounty ship (1780). Karl Lindroos in the middle, on the deck of Bounty in Florida in the winter of 2009.
Lighthouse barge was renovated into a Pirate ship ’Pirate’ in Kokkola in 2010. Some material, ideas and professionalism were imported from the United States.
Pirate’s interior when the ship was still owned by Karl Lindroos in Kokkola 2011.
Pentti Sainio
Photos: Pentti Sainio & Bruce Dundee
The facts and materials of the Pirate ship adventure have been collected by interviewing, going through the
background materials and messages provided by the persons involved, as well as numerous court reports,
police material, tax office reports, tax information requests, requests to different authorities, prosecutor’s
office judgements, Traficom vessel register and articles in several media outlets between 2010-2021.