Nicolaj Vorre, Berlingske Business
May 2, 2025
Businessman Jesper "Kasi" Nielsen has reported his former employer, Pandora, to the police for gross fraud. The jewelry giant denies all charges, but tells Berlingske that it has handed over material to the police and participated in interrogations.
Pandora – one of the country's largest and most successful listed companies – is currently being investigated by the police.
But that fact apparently does not cause any panic at the head office at Havneholmen in Copenhagen.
"Pure harassment and an expression of desperation," the jewelry giant calls the fraud report that colorful businessman Jesper "Kasi" Nielsen has filed against his former employer.
However, there is some indication that the case is being taken seriously by the National Unit for Special Crimes (NSK), which is responsible for the investigation.
On Wednesday, March 19, a court hearing was held at the Lyngby Court, which issued an order for so-called edition. This means that a person – or possibly a company – was ordered to hand over material about the case to NSK.
This is shown in a court document that Berlingske has been granted access to.
"Edition typically deals with documents that the police would like to get their hands on because they can shed light on something relevant in the investigation," says Stefan Møller Jørgensen, who is a defense attorney and has a past as a prosecutor at NSK.
He is not involved in the specific case, and his comment is therefore general.
The aforementioned court hearing was – at the request of NSK – held behind closed doors. That is why
It is unknown who has been ordered to hand over material to the police.
Berlingske has asked Pandora whether the company has been asked to provide information in the case.
"We are of course cooperating with NSK and have provided the material and participated in the interrogations that they have requested."
"have requested so that they can complete their investigations as soon as possible," writes the jewelry company's in-house lawyer, Jeppe Jensen, in an email.
Pandora does not wish to disclose the identities of the employees who have been questioned by the police, nor the dates of the interrogations.
However, Pandora states that CEO Alexander Lacik has not been questioned.
NSK has not wanted to comment on the matter, as it is an "ongoing investigation".
The heart of the dispute
Jesper Nielsen reported Pandora to NSK back in the spring of 2024.
In the complaint, he claimed that the jewelry giant defrauded him of 795 million kroner.
The background story is that Jesper Nielsen owned part of Pandora's European subsidiary, Pandora CWE, for several years until the jewelry giant bought him out in 2010.
This happened at a price of almost 400 million kroner plus a potential bonus – a so-called earn out – based on Pandora CWE's earnings over the next five years.
And here is the crux of the ensuing trouble.
Because when the bill was settled in 2015, there was not around 1.5 billion kroner for Jesper Nielsen and his family, as they had calculated.
There were zero kroner.
According to Pandora, the subsidiary Pandora CWE had earned so little money during the period that Jesper Nielsen's earn-out agreement was worthless.
Ever since, Jesper Nielsen has accused Pandora of fiddling with the numbers to cheat him.
"Everyone knows what Pandora has done," he stated in the book "Kasi-Jespers' Struggle," which was published in 2019.
Pandora has consistently denied the allegations, and in 2021 the arbitration court ruled in the jewelry giant's favor.
But that hasn't made Jesper Nielsen give up his fight, and last year he reported the case to the National Unit for Special Crimes.
A new theory
Jesper Nielsen told Berlingske that it was conversations with a number of former Pandora executives that led him to report the case.
The conversations have led him to a new theory:
That in the years from 2010 to 2014, Pandora incurred some expenses on its subsidiary Pandora CWE that actually belonged in other parts of the business.
This is said to have happened, among other things, when Pandora CWE purchased returned goods from other subsidiaries in the group and wrote them down significantly.
The maneuver reportedly negatively affected the results of Pandora CWE, while conversely it embellished the figures of other subsidiaries.
And in that way, claims Jesper Nielsen, his earn out agreement was rendered worthless.
"They took the returned goods from all over the world, and then they stuffed them into my company (Pandora CWE, ed.) to eliminate the surplus."
Do you realize how crazy this is? Do you realize how big an operation this is? There are
"Someone is going to prison for this. And they know it," he recently told Berlingske.
However, his claim was rejected by Pandora.
"It's a bit vague. The issue of inventory in Pandora CWE was thoroughly investigated during the arbitration case by an independent auditor, who concluded that no earn-out payment should be made to Jesper Nielsen," wrote the jewelry company's in-house lawyer, Jeppe Jensen, in an email to Berlingske.
However, it is precisely these circumstances that Jesper Nielsen has reported to the police.
"Pandora A/S has conducted an exercise in which they unlawfully sold all of the group's returned goods to the subsidiary Pandora CWE in violation of the agreement and with the sole purpose of depriving Kasi ApS (Jesper Nielsen's company, ed.) of their rightful payment," he wrote in his report.
Jesper Nielsen has previously informed Berlingske that he and a close family member attended a meeting about the matter at NSK in December 2024.
"I would like to confirm that I have reported Pandora to the police, and that I was questioned by NSK for a few hours in December. I have explained everything to them, given them all the material and all the evidence. That is what the questioning was about," he said in this regard.