It's Friday morning in Oslo almost three weeks ago.
The police at the Norwegian economic crime authority have for several days searched in vain for a man they suspect of serious economic crimes.
Here they set up the plan for another day with applicants and now our colleagues at NRK will be able to follow the hunt for the man named Jan Helge.
What will happen in Oslo on this day is a direct consequence of the two programs Assignment Review previously broadcast - about Mikael's millions and about the banker Kurt and his promises.
From Assignment review 11 March 2020
Reporter:
Hi Kurt. Now I'm here again from Assignment Review. Can I take a seat?
Kurt:
No no no no.
Reporter:
Just a moment.
Kurt - a former banker from Umeå - had managed to get people all over the country to invest their savings in a secret project that would make everyone involved extremely rich.
The only problem was that there was never any money.
Jan:
On Fridays often a message came that now the money is paid now the deal is ready, on Monday the winnings will be distributed.
Clerk:
And when Monday comes, I have this gut feeling that this is not good, this is not good.
And my gut feeling was never wrong.
Former entrepreneur:
If what they say is true, then this is over now.
Reporter:
But that has never been the case.
Former entrepreneur:
No.
Reporter:
For 20 years it has not been true.
Former entrepreneur:
No.
Kurt:
I have nothing to talk to you about, do you understand what I'm saying?
Reporter:
But it's over SEK 100 million Kurt. Who has directly and indirectly entered into this project through you. And people get their lives ruined.
The list of 89 people showed who for 20 years had been convinced by Kurt to invest a total of over 116 million kronor.
But the money did not go to the banker himself. But to a completely different person.
Clerk:
I would send it over to Mikael, someone named Mikael.
Reporter:
And what did you know about him?
Clerk:
That he worked at Danske Bank.
But Mikael is not a banker, but a 60-year-old former truck driver from western Sweden who received a disability pension in the 90s and who then emigrated to the Caribbean. But who in fact lived behind these gates in the small community outside Gothenburg.
And it was on his accounts that all the millions rolled in over the years.
In a tangle that kept growing and growing.
Steve:
So I think I'm about 2.7 million in total loss.
The shipowner Steve from Holland invested SEK 25 million after meeting Mikael in Paris in the early 2000s.
Steve:
If you start with these people you end up becoming a gambler because all you gotta do is put more money into the machine to hope that you get your jackpot!
That's exactly what it is!
And in Norway we met Tore. Which described an approach that was almost identical to that in Sweden.
Tore:
It's exactly the same.
Yes, only that Kurt you could have replaced with Jan Helge.
That's exactly the same.
It is Jan Helge who has been nagging about money for us and it is Kurt who has been nagging about money down there.
Jan Helge, who had attracted people to invest money in Norway, we never managed to get in touch with.
But much of the money in the project had gone into his father's accounts.
Floor:
But I'm sorry.
Reporter:
Although we know that you have received a lot of money. Several millions. We have paperwork on it. And we wonder where they have gone somewhere.
Floor:
What I can say is that if I have received anything, it has gone on to accounts in Hong Kong.
Reporter:
Is it to Mikael that the money has gone?
Floor:
Yes.
Reporter:
It's for Mikael?
Floor:
Yes.
Bit by bit, the picture became clear of how Mikael, together with Kurt from Umeå and Jan Helge from Norway, with the help of fake bank papers (1, 2, 3, 4) tricked people into investing their savings in a fictitious deal. And the money disappeared.
Steve:
Yeah.
On caviar, champagne, flying first class all over the world, staying on top hotels all over the world, fast cars.
Reporter:
And who is the top of this chain?
Steve:
I have not seen anybody else that has so much advantage of the money thats come in except Mikael.
Despite countless attempts to get in touch with Mikael, we have never succeeded.
For over 20 years, the money has flowed in to the former truck driver behind these gates. Then, after the previous program, the confirmed sum was SEK 165 million.
After the latest program that was broadcast in March last year, we invited our colleagues from Norway and NRK's reviewing social program Brennpunkt to Gothenburg to talk about the Norwegian track in investment fraud.
Reporter SVT:
There are hundreds of email conversations here.
We share our research on what the connections look like between Mikael in Sweden and Jan Helge in Norway.
Reporter SVT:
Yes, exactly, he is responsible for the Norwegian part of this project.
Reporter SVT:
Here you see deposits of 80,000, 300,000, to Ingolv ...
Between 2012 and 2014, Mikael transferred just under SEK 1.8 million to Jan Helge. In addition, he also received a million of the money from Jokkmokk, where a chancellor three years ago was persuaded by Kurt to empty the accounts of a dozen associations for money.
Now NRK will go out in search of Jan Helge in a Norwegian millionaire adventure.
Jan Tore Langemyr is plagued by carbon monoxide and throat cancer and he is in pain when he speaks.
He has reported Jan Helge to the police and now chooses to openly tell about what he knows.
Jan Tore Langemyr:
He is very outgoing and tremendously good at talking ... and just as good at writing.
Yes, he is very good at speaking for himself.
Jan Tore Langemyr has an insight into the project that few other investors have. In 2007, he flew himself to Hong Kong, where the project would have moved, to help Jan Helge with even more money as he had difficulty paying his hotel bills.
This is what met him - the Island Shangri-La Hotel
Jan Tore Langemyr:
The rooms were completely royal.
Jan Helge lived on the 42nd floor.
Jan Helge was there for almost a year, right?
But Jan Helge did not seem to be doing any work on the project.
Jan Tore Langemyr:
Nothing.
He walked and rolled in the streets and had partying and fun.
And drove a Rolls Royce and was fine when Mikael was down there.
Jan Tore Langemyr has lost SEK 8 million in the project. But he is far from alone.
Trygve:
I've been told by those people not to say anything if someone calls me.
I'm scared of those people.
Trygve invested 11 million after selling the family business he inherited.
At one point, he contacted the police, but never dared to report.
He agrees to meet NRK to show all the documentation he has.
Trygve:
I have spent all my money on this.
Everything I have saved up over time, and as my parents have saved, I am sick, have no children, there is no one after me, so no one will suffer for this.
Now it has gone so far that I want peace.
But NRK never meets Trygve. He dies during the summer.
There are also traces of Jan Helge in Sweden.
As early as 2005, he persuaded a man who ran a tire company in Stockholm to invest SEK 3.5 million. But he took the money from his company that went bankrupt and he was prosecuted.
At the trial, Jan Helge testified about the project where the money went.
He says that NOK 92 million has been invested in Norway. And that 255 million has been collected from Sweden. Over a quarter of a billion kronor already 10 years ago.
And everything is connected here.
Since Assignment Review began to take a closer look at this tangle, prosecutors and police in Sweden have also opened their eyes to what is happening around Mikael. But the preliminary investigation into suspected money laundering and gross fraud has been going on for longer than that - for almost three years.
Prosecutor Marie Andersson is the one who is now leading the preliminary investigation in Umeå.
Marie Andersson, prosecutor:
Unfortunately had some resource shortages so there so it has been standing still for quite some time.
But we're on the track again anyway so we'll see.
But we have not communicated any suspicions in any way, so before that I will not provide any information.
We are back in Norway. Just like Kurt in Sweden, Jan Helge sends text messages with hopeful updates from the store - followed by setbacks. Same show every week.
But where is he?
NRK is looking for clues in social media. And find, among other things, pictures from a holiday trip to Austria.
And then there's a photo from Hong Kong. But otherwise it is mostly just pictures from Norway.
He has visits from old friends. He meets the chairman of the municipal board in Baerum outside Oslo. And he regularly shows up at reunions with old friends from the defense.
Shortly after these pictures were taken, he sent out this text message:
Jan Helge
12/31/2018
All of us here in Zurich think we have done a solid job in recent weeks and months.
He gives the impression that he is working hard in Switzerland, while in fact he is having fun in a pub in Oslo.
The search continues. And then suddenly. On what looks like a holiday picture from Hong Kong, NRK discovers something. A training watch. Could it be that he uploads his training data online? A little click on the follow button and they are inside.
He tracks himself every time he trains. And NRK can follow after notches in the heel. Here is the route the day the picture of the watch was taken. Combined with a map service, you get here. To the same restaurant as in the picture.
He has uploaded over 200 videos and NRK can thus know exactly where he has been at different times all the way back to 2014.
It's a lot about golf. Very much about golf. On various courses around Eastern Norway.
But according to the Norwegian population register, he does not live in Norway. When NRK collects all training data, they still see that he basically only stays in an area outside Oslo.
And at regular intervals, he forgets to turn off the clock after a workout. The tours often end at the same address.
Reporter NRK:
Shall we wait for him?
He is going on several holidays abroad only in 2019. Among other things to this hotel in Italy. A pleasure trip to Switzerland. To Hong Kong over Easter and a Christmas holiday at a luxury hotel in Kenya. And at home, it's golf during the day that counts.
He has no job, pays no tax and has no income in Norway.
But does not seem to lack money.
The explanation may be found in the Norwegian Tax Agency's currency register, where sources say that in 2018 and 2019, SEK 4.8 million was transferred to Jan Helge from Mikael and Mikael's wife in Sweden.
In other words, the questions to Mikael have only increased since Assignment Review sent the latest report about him. Like the number of millions that must have flowed in to Mikael and his wife behind these gates.
Gates that we as journalists have a hard time passing.
But there are others who can do it.
Mikael:
What rights do the police have when they arrive like today, and when my wife opens the door just rushes by.
“Where is Mikael!
Where is Mikael! ”?
But when the police finally knock on his door, it is not at all because of any criminal suspicions or the result of the preliminary investigation that has been going on for almost three years.
Instead, it is the Swedish Tax Agency that has acted and requested him in personal bankruptcy.
Time and time again, he has been summoned to the district court to tell about his assets under oath. And time and time again, he has ignored appearing.
Now the district court is tired and sent police there to pick him up.
We are waiting for the district court to finally have the opportunity to face - to - face confront the man behind the investment fraud that has ruined so many people's lives.
But he will not come.
Mikael:
I was very disappointed today when the police only come storming four.
They do not take into account when it comes to this with corona or anything.
If I get corona, I will not even make it to a hospital.
Mikael has refused to accompany the police to court, citing that he is afraid of being infected by covid-19. He is therefore allowed to attend the video call meeting.
Once again, he has avoided our questions.
Mikael:
Hello?
Am I included?
Chairman of the District Court:
Yes you do.
We get to record the sound, and sit quietly in the courtroom.
Mikael:
And it's just to see this Assignment review how they have done and everything.
They have not even asked people anything.
And they say they can not get hold of me and everything.
It's so much drivel that Assignment review.
He has been singled out as the principal by everyone we spoke to in the so-called project. It is to him that the money must have rolled to an extent that is now counted in many hundreds of millions of kronor. But he himself has nothing. He says.
Mikael:
No, there is nothing.
I own nothing.
I do not have that feeling that I have to own things.
So that I have nothing in Sweden.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
What do you have abroad then?
Mikael:
Yes, it's not that much.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
Is it possible in Hong Kong you have a residence abroad?
Mikael:
Yes.
I have lived in Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai and ...
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
Do you have any bank accounts in Hong Kong?
Mikael:
No.
Nothing now.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
No money abroad anywhere else?
Mikael:
No no no no.
He has cheated and deceived most of his adult life.
And in the interrogation, he now blames everything on Kurt - the banker from Umeå.
Mikael:
I got a call from Kurt who is still active today and manages this business and this ... he asked if I have any foreign accounts that I could manage and I did.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
You have received a lot of swisch payments.
Mikael:
Yes, but I have done it on assignment because of Kurt, which I have conveyed to people who are in the business.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
But how do you report these payments that you then convey?
Mikael:
I have reported them on text messages and telephone calls to the people who will have and do the things that are done.
But the people who sent and did them have to do with Kurt.
Then Kurt ordered them to go there and there.
They have gone to other places.
They have gone to both Germany and Denmark and Norway and Singapore and Hong Kong ...
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
If we then move on to all these private individuals who believe that they have receivables ...
Mikael:
No, you can forget them.
I do not even care about them.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
There are quite a few people who say that they have brought money to you and to your accounts.
Is that right or wrong?
Mikael:
You get ... it it what it is like this that if money has come into my account it has come in because Kurt has done things that he has not been able to handle.
I've never talked to anyone at all about anything.
And I'll call Kurt after this call and ask what the hell he's up to?
We call Kurt to find out if he shares that picture.
"And I'll call Kurt after this call and ask what the hell he's up to?"
Reporter:
He puts all the blame on you here Kurt, it sounds like.
Kurt:
It is good.
Then you do not have to take on anything yourself.
Reporter:
Yes exactly. But is that true then? Is everything your fault?
Kurt:
No no no ... but it's good to blame someone else.
Reporter:
Because it is Mikael who has received all this money?
Kurt:
Yes.
I have not received a penny.
Reporter:
Is there still money coming into this project?
Kurt:
You do not have to ask about that and I have nothing to answer that either.
Reporter:
But are you still finding new investors?
Kurt:
Staffan now you can just give up, because I'm saying nothing more and just waiting for this to be finished so we can get out of all the shit.
Now NRK's reporters have been sitting on the stairs outside Jan Helge's home for 13 hours. It is no longer worthwhile to sit still. But they know he likes to train.
NRK's reporter:
A few weeks later he reappears.
He parks down to the left.
In his usual place.
Then he goes for a jog.
We're waiting by the car.
But the run is only three minutes.
Suddenly he is back.
Reporter from NRK:
Now we take this!
Jan Helge Furu?
It is Kjersti Knudssøn from NRK ..
Jan Helge: ... end then….
NRK's reporter:
He ran ..
NRK's reporter 2:
What did he say?
NRK's reporter:
He finally said….
He has run into the gym.
Then he comes out with a mask.
How long can he continue to run from those who want answers.
In his tracks are human tragedies, broken families, lost homes and personal bankruptcies.
This is how NRK's report, which was broadcast on Monday 25 January, ended.
The very next day, the Norwegian Economic Crime Authority begins an investigation. And then everything goes very fast.
Trude Stanghelle, prosecutor ecocrime:
Ecocrime takes this matter seriously.
This is a type of investment fraud that affects ordinary people.
This is also a type of fraud that we see an increase in and that we have also warned about in our criminal assessment.
On the basis of the Brennpunkt documentary on January 25, we found grounds to start our own investigations, and on that basis, the suspect was arrested today and has been arrested.
Reporter:
And what is he suspected of?
Trude Stanghelle, prosecutor ecocrime:
He is suspected of aggravated receiving.
It takes a few days for the police to find Jan Helge. On Friday, NRK will follow the search.
The house he rents is empty. So the police search further at other addresses.
So in the end. Here Jan Helge is arrested and taken away by Norwegian police.
In Norway, the police have taken what happened very seriously. Already the same week as the information becomes known on TV, the Norwegian economic crime authority starts an investigation, conducts house searches and arrests Jan Helge, who is detained for two weeks.
At the same time in Sweden, the police and prosecutors have had access to the same information as the Norwegian police, or even more extensive information, which concerns significantly larger sums and more victims.
But here the preliminary investigation has been going on for almost three years without Mikael - who appears to be the main culprit for the fraud - having to answer a single question from the police and prosecutors.
The only ones who have so far disturbed his existence behind the gates are actually us and the Swedish Tax Agency. But their attempt to find money for his large tax debt of almost SEK 4 million in the district court ran out of steam.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
And no debts to any other actors besides the public then?
Mikael:
No no no.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
On the asset side, we then have: zero.
Mikael:
Yes.
Martin Bergander, bankruptcy trustee:
Then I probably have no further questions really.
Chairman of the District Court:
So we will relax now, we are ready for today.
Mikael:
Yes, then I thank you for this.
Chairman of the District Court:
Thanks so much!
Mikael:
Thanks.
Hey!
Sign in response to Jan Helge:
Jan Helge writes in an email to NRK that:
he does not have a leading position in the project but is a regular investor.
he is registered in Switzerland and follows Norwegian law.
the money from Mikael refers to the repayment of debts. "