The case started on Tuesday evening, March 19, when the police received a report that a man was taken into a car against his will at Melkeplassen in Bergen. A few hours later, the police found the man in a van at Trengereid, writes Bergens Tidende.
Five men were arrested and remanded in custody for the abduction. Four of them are from Lithuania, one is Norwegian. The police discovered that the man who had been abducted had been deported from Norway a few years earlier. They decided that he too should be arrested and imprisoned.
– On the night of March 21, he was stopped in a car on Voss. In the car, the patrol found NOK 2,243,450. The money was seized and the man arrested. He has explained that he was on his way to Lithuania with the money, says police attorney Jørgen Henriksen, who is leading the investigation.
The police do not know if there is a connection between the money seizure and the abduction.
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– It is natural to believe that. We believe he was not a random victim, says Henriksen.
The four men from Lithuania are still in prison. They are all charged with deprivation of liberty and robbery. The Norwegian is charged with the same, but has been released.
He has pleaded guilty to deprivation of liberty, according to his defender, lawyer Knut Erik Søvik.
The man who was abducted has previously been convicted several times for the sale and storage of contraband alcohol and cigarettes. His defender, lawyer Ola Sønju Bårnes, says that the man pleads guilty to gross fraud and breach of the Immigration Act.
He expects that a trial may not come until the autumn. Henriksen says that the police will ask that the men remain in prison until then.
