According to the indictment, the money should have come from loan fraud, robbery and drug crime. – We cannot see that there is any legal origin for the funds. And then the funds are considered proceeds of a criminal offence, says state attorney Peter Andre Johansen to news. The man is accused of laundering at least half a billion kroner. The police have questioned many witnesses and large amounts of documents and correspondence have been seized, says Johansen. – Altogether, I think there are 180 to 190 witnesses for now. It was TV 2 that mentioned the indictment first. State Attorney Peter Andre Johansen is the prosecutor in the case. He is unsure whether four months is enough for a trial with many witnesses and tens of thousands of transactions. Photo: Terje Bendiksby / NTB Denies money laundering The accused Oslo man in his 50s ran a banking service called hawala. This is a legal system for transferring and values between different countries. However, the police believe that he has broken the law in several areas. The man’s defender, Bernt Heiberg, says the indictment on money laundering has no roots in reality. – He will plead not guilty to that. Heiberg says his client will, among other things, admit that he transferred more money than he was authorized to. – However, he acknowledges that he has run hawala activities to a greater extent than what he had a license for. Lawyer Bernt Heiberg says his client ran hawala operations on a very large scale and handled hundreds of millions of kroner. Photo: Ole Berg-Rusten / NTB Taken with NOK 13.4 million In 2019, the man in his 50s was stopped at customs at Oslo Airport on his way to Istanbul. He had declared NOK six million in cash, but when the customs officers checked they found much more. In his luggage, the man had a total of NOK 13.4 million and 6,000 US dollars. The year before, he illegally took over 100,000 euros past the customs area at Oslo Airport. – If there are times he has traveled out without us catching it, we cannot rule it out, says state attorney Peter Andre Johansen. The man’s defender explains the undeclared money as a misunderstanding. – At this time, he had money from several different hawala companies which were not his, but which he transported on their behalf. He forgot to declare some of these, says Heiberg. The man has been in custody since January 2020. Identity theft International money transfers must be registered in the currency register with, among other things, the sender and recipient. Between 2015 and 2020, the man is said to have used the identity of at least 20 people to send money abroad. According to the indictment, these people did not know anything about the transfers in their names. The public prosecutor does not rule out that more people may have had their identities misused. – Whether we have the full story there or whether it is the tip of the iceberg, I don’t know, says Johansen. The defense attorney says the defendant denies having stolen people’s identities. On Tuesday, the four-month long trial starts in Romerike and Glåmdal district court.
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Oslo man indicted for laundering up to NOK 500 million for criminals – news Oslo og Viken – Local news, TV and radio
