Billionaire and suspected murderer is free, but Norwegian police need your help
Tom Hagen, a Norwegian billionaire (the 665th richest person alive) and suspected murderer, was released from jail last month after a lower court order to keep him imprisoned was reversed on appeal. Hagen is still being charged with murder or complicity to murder his wife, Anne-Elisabeth, and another suspect in his mid 30s was also recently arrested.
Hagen has been in jail for over a year after a dramatic daytime kidnapping of his wife took place in late October of 2018. The kidnappers demands? Monero, specifically 100 million krone worth (or just over $12 million). Anne-Elisabeth hasn’t been seen or heard from since. The kidnapping — and suspected murder, though a body has yet to be discovered — has left investigators puzzled by a string of odd, but distinct, clues left behind by the kidnappers.
What was already known to the public is that the kidnappers used Bitcoin to communicate their demands, and Monero to take in the ransom — over $1.65 million of the +$12 million ransom was paid on July 10th, 2019.
What’s new to the public is what investigators hope will lead to their perpetrator(s).
• The kidnapper set up accounts with KuCoin, Binance, and Huobi with a stolen ID, half a year before the kidnapping. Neither the KuCoin nor Binance accounts were used.
• The kidnapper funded the Huobi account on July 10th, 2018 with Dash — a coin with minimal volume on Huobi.
• The kidnapper urged Tom Hagen to utilize OTC desks such as Cumberland Mining and DV Trading to buy Monero.
Hagen’s son says his father is technology illiterate, but that hasn’t cleared the billionaire as far as the Norwegian police are concerned: the charges will stick until law enforcement decides to go or not go to trial — and the ability to piece this kidnapping together may lie with the cryptocurrency and cryptography community surrendering one of their own.
If you know anything that could help lead to Anne-Elisabeth’s murderer Norwegian police urge you to reach out to them.