One of Norway’s wealthiest men has been arrested in connection with his wife’s disappearance in 2018 and held on suspicion of murder or complicity to murder in a case police had earlier thought was a kidnapping.
Tom Hagen, a media-shy real-estate investor and owner of an electric company, was detained on his way to work, the chief police investigator, Tommy Broeske, said.
The case had made headlines in the Scandinavian country, where police first reported that Anne-Elisabeth Falkevik Hagen had been abducted. Police had been told of her disappearance on 31 October 2018, but did not speak publicly about it until 9 January 2019, after which hundreds of tips poured in.
“The case is characterised by a clearly planned deception,” Broeske told a news conference in Oslo on Tuesday. “As other hypotheses have been weakened, suspicions against Tom Hagen have gradually been strengthened.”
The prosecutor Aase Kjustad Eriksson said the authorities would seek on Wednesday to have Hagen held for four weeks in pre-trial custody and that further arrests were possible.
Police declined to elaborate on a motive due to the continuing investigation.
Anne-Elisabeth, who had been married to Hagen for 50 years, disappeared from the couple’s home in Lørenskog, east of Oslo, authorities said.
A ransom for her release was demanded, police said in January 2019, but declined to reveal the amount. The Norwegian newspaper VG said it was for €9m (£785,000) to be paid in a cryptocurrency popular among cyber-criminals.
Police eventually released security videos of men walking back and forth outside Hagen’s workplace. Officers and police dogs were also seen scouring the grounds around the couple’s home and divers searched a nearby pond as police led a large investigation at home and abroad.
In June 2019, police changed their main hypothesis because of the absence of any signs the missing woman was still alive or any recent contacts with the alleged kidnappers. They believe Anne-Elisabeth, who has never been found, had been killed and said they “cannot exclude a staged kidnapping to hide it”.
Tom Hagen, the second-oldest in a farming family of 12 children, struck it rich in the real estate business he started in 1978. His fortune is estimated to be worth nearly 1.7bn kroner (£129m).
source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/28/norwegian-tycoon-tom-hagen-arrested-over-wifes-disappearance-in-2018
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