On Monday 20 February, detectives from the Oslo police see a man in a camouflage jacket meeting another man at Vaterland in central Oslo. They get into a gray Toyota and drive off. The police are on the trail of a network they suspect of smuggling tens of millions out of Norway and Sweden. They follow the gray car out of Oslo and across the border to Sweden. Swedish scouts take over there. 40 million in cash was later seized on a ferry dock in the very south of the country. The Swedish trial against the five men ended yesterday. – We haven’t been able to show where the money comes from more than that the circumstances surrounding the transport have been considered a reprehensible risk-taking, says prosecutor Charlotta Stege Unger in the Swedish Public Prosecutor’s Office to news. Charlotta Stege Unger works for the Swedish National Unit against international and organized crime. Photo: THOMAS CARLGREN Judgment in the case is expected on 4 July. It was the Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri that mentioned the case first. Met a concrete truck at a petrol station The car the police spied on drove into the lorry parking lot at a petrol station and parked next to a white concrete truck. They then saw a man with a beard and a black jacket get out of the cement truck and walk over to the Toyota. Two days after the Spaniards saw this handover, Swedish police took action against four trucks, two of them concrete trucks, which were going on the ferry from Trelleborg in Sweden to Rostock in Germany. The concrete trucks were bought in Norway. One of the trucks in which money was found. – It all started as a reconnaissance effort from Norway when they followed a car from Norway to Sweden. During a meeting at a car park in Tanumshede (in Sweden, editor’s note), money was handed over to one of the Turkish drivers who was later caught with money in the cargo in Trelleborg, says Unger to news. She works for the National Unit against international and organized crime. In total, the police found 23.3 million Norwegian kroner and 16.3 million Swedish kroner. Most of the money was hidden in plastic bags inside the drum of the concrete truck. – The trucks have been a way of taking the money out, but they have not been rebuilt for this purpose, she says. news has been in contact with the police in Oslo. They are tight-lipped about the investigation and trial in Sweden. – We have no comment on the Swedish investigation, says Knut Lutro, head of the section for covert investigations in the Oslo police district to news. Beyond the fact that the Norwegian police followed the car from Norway to Sweden, Stege Unger does not want to say anything more about the Norwegian clues in the case. – The trucks have been a way of taking the money out, but they have not been rebuilt for this purpose, says Stege Unger to news. Checkers in a game This week the five Turkish men had to appear in court in Sweden, accused of having tried to smuggle 40 million Norwegian and Swedish kroner out of the country. All the defendants deny criminal guilt. – He did not have any money and he believes he should not be judged for this. None of them believe they should be judged. They are only drivers who have picked up cars, they are just pieces in a game, says Johan Länström, defense attorney for one of the defendants. In total, the police found 23.3 million Norwegian kroner and 16.3 million Swedish kroner. He says the defendants thought the money was legally collected. – They thought it was money collected for earthquake victims. There had just been an earthquake there and maybe someone had told them. But my client withdrew, as he thought it was strange with so much money, he did not want to transport the money, he says. Large sums of cash were found in the trucks. The public prosecutor in Sweden says they do not know where the money came from. The lawyer tells news that the trucks were going to Turkey or the Middle East. Prosecutor Stege Unger says they do not know where the money comes from. – Therefore, they are accused of serious money laundering, and then we are not required to prove where the money comes from. They have tried to take out approximately NOK 40 million in Swedish and Norwegian cash, says Stege Unger. Tip news’s crime group: Do you have information about this case or other crime cases? Contact news’s crime group. You can tip us off by e-mail or through news’s encrypted notification service. Here you can tip us anonymously. We also treat all tips confidentially, in line with the Vær varsom poster’s rules on source protection.
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Tens of millions smuggled – cash was hidden in concrete trucks – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
