Leif G. W. Persson

Leif Gustav Willy Persson (born 12 March 1945 in Stockholm) is a Swedish criminologist and novelist. He was a professor in criminology at the Swedish National Police Board from 1992 to 2012. He is known for his crime fiction novels and for his regular appearances as an expert commentator on notable crime cases in television and newspapers. Between 1999 and 2009, he participated as an expert commentator on the television show Efterlyst on TV3. Nowadays he participates in the television show Veckans Brott with Camilla Kvartoft, which is primarily about unsolved Swedish criminal cases.

In 1977, while working at the Swedish National Police Board, Persson was the whistleblower who worked with journalist Peter Bratt in the so-called Geijer Scandal when he confirmed a classified memo sent by then National Police Commissioner Carl Persson to Prime Minister Olof Palme about the alleged ties of the Minister of Justice, Lennart Geijer, to a prostitution ring in Stockholm. Following this affair he was fired from the National Police Board. The string of events almost drove Persson to suicide, but he soon returned as lecturer at Stockholm University. The prostitution ring affair inspired him to write his first novel, Grisfesten. He returned as a professor at the National Police Board in 1992.