Born in Norrköping in 1961, Löfving joined the Swedish Police Academy and graduated in 1981, serving as a law enforcement officer in his home town.

With effect from 1 February 2009, he transferred to become chief of police of Västra Götaland County, commenting that he was taking on a bigger job and that it was healthy for Östergötland and himself to gain different perspectives.

[5] In November 2019, Löfving set up a police task force named Operation Hoarfrost to counter a new wave of immigrant gang violence.

[6] Löfving made headlines in September 2020, when he spoke out on Swedish Radio about the problem of immigrant family-based criminal gangs in Sweden, of which he said there were at least forty.

He was quoted as saying that "Far from everyone wants to be a part of Swedish society"[8] and that some families had come to Sweden "solely for the purpose of organizing and systematizing crime",[9] bringing with them their own parallel systems of government.

The initial call-out was a cardiac arrest alarm, and a police website says "The victim was Mats Löfving, who was found dead in his home in Norrköping".