A Swedish businessman has put a four metre high statue of Vladimir Lenin in front of his office  – in a bid to scare off car thieves.

Kalevi Hamalainen says he received the monument of the former Soviet leader as a gift from long-time partners from Russia and Latvia.

At first, he wanted to out it in his garden, but the 4.7-tonne statue was just too big. So instead, he moved it to a parking lot in front of his office.

“So far not a single car has been stolen there” he said to a local newspaper.

Kalevi, who says he’s a liberal, insists there’s no political motive in the Communist leader’s statue taking such a prominent place in a small Swedish town. He says people who know him personally will not fail to see the joke.

The statue was originally erected in a town in Latvia, but was demolished after the Baltic state won its independence.