Declassified files from Romania's Securitate archives revealed that IKEA's furniture contracts with state-owned Tehnoforestexport in the 1980s included a covert scheme to funnel payments to Ceaușescu's secret police. The operation was codenamed Scandinavica and used a Securitate front company, ICE Dunarea, to skim money through overbilling.
The contracts were worth about £10 million per year by the mid-1980s. A Securitate note recorded the transfer of 163,005 Swedish crowns into a Securitate-controlled transitory account from a contract valued at 97 million Swedish crowns ($13.6 million). The Securitate collected a 1.85% commission on the overbilling and earned $41,283 in interest over six months from delaying repayment of the overpayments.
IKEA denied knowingly paying the Securitate, saying its only business partner was Tehnoforestexport and that commission structures were normal for the region at the time. It launched an internal investigation. The documents were discovered in 2014 at the National College for Studying the Securitate Archives in Bucharest.
Overbilling on contracts worth £10 million a year let the Securitate skim a 1.85% commission, costing IKEA reputational damage when files revealed the payments.
IKEA's commission-based contract structure allowed the Romanian state to siphon overpayments into a secret police account without the company's apparent awareness
The company accepted local business practices — including opaque commission structures — without verifying where the money ultimately went
A decade-long relationship with a state monopoly in a police state created a channel the Securitate could exploit without IKEA's knowledge
Complex commission structures in opaque jurisdictions can conceal payments to entities no company would knowingly fund — the cost of not verifying the chain of payment is reputational ruin
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