On Monday, the trial began in Malmö District Court in Sweden after one of the largest cocaine cases in Scandinavia's history. Six men are charged with involvement with 1,500 kg of cocaine, which has a street value of well over a billion kroner. The case is very serious, emphasizes prosecutor Lundström-Kron.
According to the indictment, the Norwegians traveled to Helsingborg in Sweden on May 13. There, they carried out at least 100 sacks filled with at least 1,500 kg of cocaine from a truck trailer. Then they allegedly loaded the cocaine into a van and drove away from Helsingborg to Malmö, where the cocaine was placed in an apartment.
According to the prosecution, it was at a parking lot in Landskrona, between Helsingborg and Malmö, that the Norwegians moved the cocaine into the van. On the same day the Norwegians traveled to Helsingborg, a cargo ship docked in the same city. On the ship was a container from Costa Rica that, according to accompanying documents, was fully loaded with bananas.
The day before, a Belarusian truck driver drove from Lithuania. On the way, he received false papers to pick up the container, which was actually supposed to be delivered to a banana wholesaler in Helsingborg. The wholesaler contacted the port to arrange delivery of the banana crates, but the container was not in the port.
The container was instead found on a parking lot in Landskrona. The Belarusian driver picked it up with the false documents he received. The day after, the container was found outside the banana wholesaler it was originally supposed to be delivered to, and there was a large empty space in the container.
Messages presented in court show that one of the accused received 150,000 kroner shortly after the alleged cocaine transfer was carried out. Swedish police have only found just over 200 kg of the total 1,500 kg of cocaine. The Norwegians deny guilt, their defenders informed in district court.
In court, the accused are surrounded by 15 prison guards for security. The youngest of them was 17 years old when the alleged offense occurred in May last year. A 21-year-old driver's nervous behavior led to him being taken out for control.
Now he is being prosecuted for gross narcotics smuggling, reports SVT News Skåne. This Swedish case unfolds against a backdrop of other recent drug smuggling and trafficking cases in Norway. 9 kg of cocaine across Ljørdalen in Trysil.
All five men have now been sentenced to several years in prison. Two of the involved admitted guilt in district court for smuggling hashish in the forest near the Swedish border in Trysil. They could not get away because their car got stuck in the snow.
The other three in the case have denied having anything to do with the smuggling. 5 kg of hashish from Sweden to Norway over Ljørdalen in Trysil. 6 kg of hashish using a sled on March 9, 2022, at Gravberget in Våler.
I'm stuck.
The Swede denies guilt, but police found DNA on an empty bag seized in Trysil. A man in his 40s is charged with organizing the Trysil smuggling together with others unknown to the police. The man in his 40s does not admit guilt.
Police believe he traveled to Trysil to pick up the first two with a man in his late 30s. A man in his late 30s is believed by police to have been meant to pick up the first two and the drugs together with the man in his 40s charged with organizing. 9 kg of cocaine in the bags they pulled on two sleds through the snow.
The man in his 40s is now sentenced to five years and six months in prison. Two Norwegians got their car stuck in snow in Trysil while attempting to retrieve narcotics at the border. There was hectic activity in the encrypted group chat 'Taxi as' regarding the retrieval operation.
An impatient Swede using the alias 'Trizzy' waited at the drop spot five kilometers away with nearly 100 kg of hash and 4 kg of cocaine. 'Petter Northug SR' walked through half a meter of snow in -20°C without proper clothing to retrieve the drugs, not knowing it was almost five kilometers to the meeting point. 9 kg of cocaine onto sleds and a backpack at the border and dragged them back, suffering from cold and fearing death.
The driver helped drag the load, and they hid the drugs in the snow away from the car, fearing police or customs. They contacted a towing service in the area out of desperation. There are hundreds of small and large roads into Norway for smuggling, with drugs also coming via gravel roads and paths.
NRK has mapped the forest roads in the borderland between Norway and Sweden, showing short distances between roads on either side in places like Ljørdalen in Trysil. In a separate case, a Polish man in his 40s was sentenced to 2 years and 4 months in prison for illegal importation of goods to Norway. On July 2 last year, he was stopped at Magnormoen control station in Eidskog with 3,160,000 cigarettes, 211 liters of beer, 1,632 liters of wine, and 500 liters of spirits in his truck.
In court, the man denied guilt and asked to be acquitted. The verdict was unanimous. He declared 18 pallets of cardboard at the border station in Eda, Sweden, but did not declare 13 pallets with cigarettes and other alcohol and cigarettes placed in pallet boxes in the vehicle.
Prosecutor Wigdis Hjalmarsen requested 3 years in prison but did not get support from the court for this. Twelve minutes after crossing the border, he was stopped at a rest area by customs and ordered back to the control station for inspection. The man denied knowledge that the pallets, which according to the verdict were loaded in Poland, contained undeclared goods.
In addition to the prison sentence, he was deprived of his driving license in Norway permanently. The verdict is not final and can be appealed. The scale and seriousness of cross-border drug trafficking in Scandinavia are underscored by these interconnected cases.
Key unknowns persist in these investigations. Authorities have not determined what happened to the remaining approximately 1,300 kg of cocaine from the Swedish case that police have not found. Police also have not identified the unknown others involved in organizing the Trysil smuggling case.
The outcome of the appeal consideration for the Polish man sentenced for illegal importation of goods remains to be seen. Beyond DNA on a bag, the specific evidence linking the Swede to the cocaine in the Trysil case has not been fully disclosed. Additionally, the identities and roles of the other three men charged in the Swedish cocaine case besides the Norwegians are not detailed in available reports.