Swedish police arrest alleged mastermind of Auschwitz sign theft

Swedish police have arrested the former neo-Nazi leader Anders Högström, who is wanted in Poland over theft of the ‘Arbeit macht frei" sign from the site of the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz. Högström was reportedly arrested by police at his home on Thursday afternoon. Poland last week issued an EU-wide arrest warrant for the 34-year-old as he is suspected of having commissioned five Poles to steal the sign on behalf on a British Nazi-sympathizer.
 
Swedish police said a Stockholm court would now decide whether to extradite Högström to Poland for trial.
 
In early January, Högström told a Swedish newspaper that he was supposed to act as an intermediary to pick up the sign and sell it to a buyer, but in the end he informed police about the people behind the plot. "I was asked if I wanted to take the sign from one location to another," he was quoted as saying by the newspaper ‘Aftonbladet’. Polish police had recovered the metal sign cut into three pieces on 20 December 2009, two days after it had been stolen, and arrested five Poles.

Högström in 1994 founded the National Socialist Front, a Swedish neo-Nazi movement which he led for five years before quitting.