Norway has charged four men with involvement in a “large and extensive” investment fraud that collected NOK 963 million ($86.5 million) from investors between March 2015 and November 2018.
Filing its indictment Monday, the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway—also known as Økokrim—alleged that the fraud operated by encouraging individuals to invest in yield-bearing “product packages” containing cryptocurrencies and shares.
Økokrim says it has proof that the accused network of individuals made no real investments, and that their business had no earnings beyond the deposits of victims.
In a press release, Økokrim State Prosecutor Joakim Ziesler Berge said, “We believe this is a large and extensive fraud. We are talking about a great many victims in many countries who have lost their money, and significant sums that have ended up with the defendants.”
The defendants in question are four Norwegian men in their 50s, 60s and 70s, with three having allegedly collected the invested money, and with one other accused of having participated in money laundering.
The network laundered over NOK 700 million ($62.7 million) of the scam’s proceeds through a Norwegian investment firm, with money also forwarded to linked accounts in various Asian countries.
Located in Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and China, their victims sent money to purported investment vehicles with such names as Crypto888 Club, Octa Partners and Nano Club.
These were all branding for the same alleged multi-level marketing (aka Ponzi) scheme, with Octa Partners collapsing and rebooting as Nano Club, and then as Crypto888, and then later as Nano Crowd.
Each version of the fraud offered its own cryptocurrency to investors, beginning with OctaCoin and moving onto NanoCoin and Ormeus Coin, while each also promised to pay monthly returns based on its promised profits.
According to Norwegian newspaper DN, one of the indicted individuals has been named as Terje Hvidsten, a former art dealer who has previous convictions for fraud and who has been in prison since 2024 on count of another serious fraud.
One other accused individual has been named as Dag Hætta (formerly Verner) Eriksen, who has similar convictions for corruption and fraud.
The other two alleged perpetrators have not been named, although one has been described as a 52-year-old from Romerike (a district north-east of Oslo) and the other as a 70-year-old former lawyer, who helped launder the proceeds of the fraud.
The 52-year-old has denied criminal liability, while the attorney for Hvisten has said that their client objects to the indictment’s description of him.
The two other defendants have refused to comment, with the case against all four scheduled to take place in Oslo District Court over 60 days from September.
“The case shows that organized crime in the form of fraud and money laundering across borders will be investigated and prosecuted, even if the victims of the crime are in countries other than Norway,” said Joakim Ziesler Berge.
“A growing problem”
Økokrim also mentions in its statement that investment fraud “is a growing problem in Norway and internationally,” with experts in fraud echoing this description.
“Investment fraud involving cryptocurrencies is increasingly common in Europe and globally,” said Sarah Twohig, a regulatory disputes lawyer who specializes in crypto fraud at multinational law firm Pinsent Masons.
Twohig told Decrypt that the latest Chainalysis Crypto Crime Report found that high-yield investment and ‘pig butchering’ scams deliver the highest returns for cryptocurrency fraudsters, with all crypto scams receiving at least $9.9 billion in on-chain value in 2024.
And while she notes that crypto transactions still represent “only a limited share of the criminal economy,” Twohig also acknowledged that virtual assets provide some advantages to would-be fraudsters.
She explained, “Criminals often exploit the decentralised and pseudonymous nature of cryptocurrencies to carry out and conceal fraudulent activities more easily. This makes it challenging for regulatory authorities and law enforcement to trace and recover funds.”
Regulators are beginning to catch up, with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) aiming to address the growing risk of fraud by imposing stringent requirements on crypto-asset service providers.
“The EU’s new AML package is technology neutral so as to ensure that the proceeds of cryptocurrency crime cannot be used to launder funds or provide terrorist financing,” said Twohig. “This will provide legal protection to investors and businesses operating in the cryptocurrency space alike.”
