On Tuesday, the international police operation “Trojan Shield” was made known to the world. Yesterday it also became known that among those arrested were eight from Norway.
There are a total of nine arrested in several districts, says Jonas Fabritius Christoffersen, communications consultant at Kripos to NRK.
The Inland Police District confirms that three of them were taken in the Inland. They were arrested in May.
Two Lithuanian men arrested
Two of the nine arrested have been arrested in the South-East police district.
– Two of them are Lithuanian men. One in Porsgrunn, and one in Tønsberg. They are charged in a serious drug case, says police inspector Skei Kostveit.
The two were arrested on Monday. According to Kostveit, the arrest was completely undramatic. Both have been questioned and will be produced for custody on Wednesday.
– We initially ask for two weeks in custody.
Kostveit confirms that the arrests came as a result of information from the ongoing Trojan Shield investigation. The two are charged in the same case.
The three arrested from Innlandet have been charged and remanded in custody due to the risk of evidence being lost. They are charged with aggravated drug dealing.
– For the sake of the investigation, we can not comment further at this time, says head of investigation, Mari Lauritzen Hasle.
Kripos does not rule out further arrests.
«Trojan Shield»
During the operation, more than 800 criminals in 16 countries were arrested. The police operation is said to have led to more than 100 murders being averted, of which 10 murders have been averted in Sweden.
“This has been the most advanced international police operation against organized crime to date,” said Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, deputy head of Europol.
The operation, which is still ongoing, is led by the US FBI, the Australian Federal Police AFP and Europol.
Secret police app
The federal Australian police, together with the US FBI, have secretly operated an encrypted communication platform called ANoM, where the actors have communicated, according to ABC News.
Criminals were forced to use ANoM after police stopped another encrypted platform.
The encrypted app has been used on over 12,000 devices used by over 300 criminal syndicates in over 100 countries. Over 27 million messages have been collected and evaluated over 18 months.
It is this information that enables the police this week to act worldwide.
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