In a sensational arrest involving cordoned-off streets, the Norwegian police have seized millionaire Tom Hagen over the alleged murder of his wife Anne-Elisabeth Hagen, who was long believed to be kidnapped, national broadcaster NRK reported.
Police chief Melbo Øystese described the arrest as the result of a broad investigation where evidence increased over time.
Anne-Elisabeth, 68, Hagen's wife of nearly 50 years, disappeared from the family home in Lørenskog outside of Oslo on the morning of 31 October, 2018, never to be seen again. There were signs of a struggle inside the home that borders a lake. Subsequently, a ransom note demanding payment in cryptocurrency was found, and the case was handled as a kidnapping.
The police controversially kept the case under wraps, refraining from public announcements until January 2019 and citing troubles in contacting the alleged kidnappers.
Later, the course of the investigation was changed from a kidnapping with financial motives to murder, in which the ransom note for 9 million euros in the cryptocurrency monero was used as a red herring to cover the culprit's tracks. Tom Hagen reportedly paid out millions after receiving threats that she would be killed, but the police later decided that the threats were yet another attempt to throw law enforcement off the scent.
Now, the police believe no kidnapping ever took place. Instead, Anne-Elisabeth Hagen is seen as the victim of a premeditated murder that had been in the works for at least five months.
“There has not been any real negotiating party or real negotiations”, chief investigator Tommy Brøske said.
Instead, 70-year-old Tom Hagen, who ranks among Norway’s wealthiest people after making a fortune in electricity and real estate, was charged with murdering his wife or contributing to her murder. With the advanced system of payments to crypto accounts, the police don't exclude further arrests in the future.
Secret investigations in Tom Hagen's home have been going on since last summer. The police reportedly wiretapped his phone. Hagen has purportedly been cooperative throughout the investigation, while his own theory has been that his wife’s disappearance was meant as an attack on him personally.
On Tuesday, after his arrest on suspicion of murder, Hagen “forcefully denied” any involvement in his wife's disappearance.
Following the arrest, a copy of the marriage agreement between Hagen and his wife was floated in the Norwegian media. Under the deal, all she would be entitled to in the case of a divorce would be a plot of land, NOK 200,000 ($19,000), and a Citroën BX 14 RE, or car of a similar standard. “Everything Tom Hagen in the future acquires either through inheritance, endowment, salary, investment return, or otherwise, is his peculiar property”, the 1987 deal said.
Lawyers for the police see the marriage agreement as so lopsided and unfair that if it had ever been taken to court, it could have been declared invalid, the newspaper Verdens Gang reported.
This, the Norwegian media speculated, may be a possible motive for the murder.
Hagen’s personal fortune has been estimated at nearly NOK 2 billion ($190 million). His wife Anne Elisabeth was listed as a board member for several of his companies, as are several of their children.