Driver gets fined $129,544 after latest speeding episode in Finland

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A wealthy driver has been fined 121,000 euros ($129,544) for speeding in Finland, where such penalties are calculated on the basis of an offender’s income.

“I really regret the matter,” the main newspaper for the Aaland Islands, an autonomous region of Finland in the Baltic Sea, quoted Anders Wiklöf as saying in an article published Monday.

Wiklöf was driving 82 kilometers per hour (51 miles per hour) in a 50 kilometer per hour (31 miles per hour) zone when police stopped and ticketed him Saturday. Along with getting the fine, he had his driver’s license suspended for 10 days, the Nya Aaland newspaper said.

It wasn’t the first time Wiklöf was caught driving too fast. In 2018, he was fined 63,680 euros ($ 68,176), and he had to cough up 95,000 euros ($102,000) five years earlier.

A native of Aaland, Wiklöf is chairman of a holding company that includes businesses in the logistics, helicopter services, real estate, trade and tourism sectors.

The archipelago sits at entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia, between the Finnish city of Turku, on mainland Finland’s west coast, and Sweden’s capital of Stockholm.