Police have been investigating the disappearance of Anne-Elizabeth Hagen for nearly three years. There are no signs of life from her since she disappeared from Lorenzko on 31 October 2018. She was 68 when she disappeared.
Police believe the identity of someone from Sørlandet has been misused by missing persons or those behind it. The investigation revealed that someone had taken a copy of his passport and that the information had been sold in the dark web.
In August last year, Kermund Hansen took over as head of the investigation into the Lorensk case.
Photo: Runar Henriksen Jørstad / NRK
By conducting an investigation into the ID theft, police believe they can now reveal who is behind the disappearance.
– The abuse of this identity is a very important clue, says Jermaine Hansen, head of investigation in the Eastern Police District, who tells the NRK that we do a lot of work.
– We believe there is a possibility of mapping out who is involved in that ID. These should include our culprits.
Used to create crypto accounts
Shortly after the disappearance, Tom Hagen found a threatening letter in a chair inside the home of Tom and Anne-Elizabeth Hagen in Slovenia, Lorenzko.
In the letter, there was a request for a ransom – and an arrangement for how to communicate between the parties through cryptocurrency.
This chair contained the threatening letter discovered by Tom Hagen. The letter was written in bad Norwegian and English, but police investigations say they believe the person behind the letter was Norwegian.
Photo: Håvard Greger Hagen / NRK
Police believe the stolen identity was used to create accounts in cryptocurrency transactions used by criminals.
– We know they have been misused or actively used to create these accounts in exchange transactions, Hanson says.
– Do you know when the ID was stolen?
– We have various information about this and we are constantly working to map that question correctly. But we don’t want it to go out now.
Gribose asks for help
TV2, Citing ID theft on Saturday, said Gripos recently sent an internal cover letter to police districts. Here, a senior police officer writes that the stolen identity was used in other criminal cases as well.
– We have great challenges in detecting all criminal cases that use identity, so ask all colleagues involved in cases related to the purchase of IDs or ID packages on various sites to be identified in their case or to send information. The police chief writes in Gripos about the specific case of the signatory, according to the TV channel.
It has been almost three years since Anne-Elizabeth Hagen disappeared.
Photo: Police
TV2 sent a letter to Gribose and the Eastern Police District asking why only now, how many criminal cases have been identified, and whether they have received any responses from colleagues.
Communications manager Åste Dahle Sundet told NRK that he could not answer questions about the Gripos case because the Eastern Police District was responsible for the investigation.
The NRK was not caught in the eastern police district on Saturday. Attorney Hanson writes in an email to TV2 that since October 2018, finding out who owns the stolen ID is a priority.
Hanson writes that it would be appropriate to see if this identification has been used in other criminal cases nationally or internationally, but did not answer further questions from the TV channel.
Tom Hagen has been charged with murder and complicity in the murder of his wife. He denies the criminal offense and spoke less with the press. In October last year, the NRK released a lengthy interview with Hagen.
“Power Gathering” About Cryptospores
Anne-Elizabeth Hagen went missing from her home in Fijellhammer, Lorensk, on October 31, 2018. In April 2020, Her husband, Tom Hagen, 71, accused her of killing him.
The 71-year-old said he was stubbornly stubborn and innocent. In addition, a 30-year-old man referred to as “The Crypto Man” has been charged with aggravated robbery of liberty and pleading not guilty to a felony.
Even after nearly three years of investigation, there are still many unanswered questions in this case. Both persons and The cars that were in the area when they went missing have not yet been identified.
Police say the so-called cryptospore will be the main focus of the investigation in the future. This includes the creation of so-called addresses for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Monero.
– Crypto track has been a high priority since day one – no doubt about it. What we are open to now is that we are gathering more and more tactical evidence along this path, Hanson says.
This led to the need for additional evidence to deal with what the police refer to as “tactical investigations” – a police investigator explaining that this was due to a technical investigation aided by Gribose. Hansen cites the following identities, email addresses, and IP addresses as examples.
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