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Tom Hagen, 70, has become a billionaire after 25 years in the energy industry.
Despite his commercial success, he has always kept a low profile and did not appear in the media.
Something that has now completely changed.
He has rarely spoken to the media and has constantly avoided appearing in public.
He never bragged about his successes and his wealth.
But on January 9, 2019, Tom Hagen, 70, became one of the most talked about people in Norway.
Photo: Gisle Oddstad / VG
Tom Hagen left the Oslo detention center through the back door with a black garbage bag on his shoulder. Then he got into a car with his lawyer and left.
Later, a wider audience learned that his wife, Anne-Elisabeth Hagen, had disappeared from the couple’s shared residence in Lørenskog on October 31, 2018.
Norwegian police told reporters that the theory was that Hagen’s wife, then 68, had been removed against her will. It was suspected that she had been kidnapped by several unknown perpetrators.
The night before Anne-Elisabeth Hagen disappeared, she was with her husband Tom Hagen in Oslo. Along with some acquaintances they watched the musical “The Book of Mormon”.
The performance ended at 10.30pm and the Hagen couple went home. At 09.14 the next day, October 31, 2018, Anne-Elisabeth Hagen had disappeared without a trace.
“Kidnapped!”, Since the latter would appear on the flyers.
A ransom claim would have been made, according to documents found by the Hagens hus spouses.
It was worth nine million euros.
A sum to be paid in Monero crypto currency.
The answer at the end
Theories, traces, searches and analysis of the incident periodically returned to Norwegian newspapers and television channels. Columnists, lawyers, criminologists, and former police inspectors had thoughts on the mysterious disappearance.
How was it really?
As time passed, police investigators began searching for other explanations. The original notification was increasingly questioned.
Had Anne-Elisabeth Hagen really been kidnapped? they asked themselves.
In the end, the answer was denied and the investigation into the mysterious human revolt turned into a murder investigation.
The case was considered the so-called homicidal murder.
After the police name change, the Hagen family’s lawyer stated that they had had contact with the alleged kidnappers. According to the lawyer, they reportedly spoke Norwegian and claimed that Anne-Elisabeth Hagen was alive.
However, no evidence could be presented to justify this contact.
“Probably more people”
Just over 1.5 years after the disappearance, on April 28 of this year, Tom Hagen, arrested for murder or assisting in the murder of his wife, was arrested. He was also suspected of trying to trick the police through a fictional story of a kidnapping.
He was also arrested a few days later, suspected of murder or assisted with murder.
In its arrest decision, the Lower Roman District Court wrote in Lilleström that “it is probable that there have been several people involved” in the crime.
The arrest decision was appealed to the High Court of Appeals and on May 7, Hagen’s lawyer, Svein Holden, stated that the court decided to release the billionaire with his free foot. However, he still suspects.
Tom Hagen hails from the city of Grand in Oppland, where he grew up in simple conditions along with 12 siblings.
Anne-Elisabeth is the only daughter.
Anne-Elisabeth, who was then called Rasmussen by her last name, was a student at the Gjøvik People’s High School. He got in line for housework and finished in 1968.
The following year, in 1969, he met Tom Hagen, who studied at the Gjøvik University of Technology.
They were married the same year. They were both 19 years old and the wedding party took place at Anne-Elisabeth’s childhood home.
The couple now has three adult sons, two daughters, and a son. They also have several grandchildren.
“Being exceptional people”
According to the Oppland Arbeiderblad newspaper, Anne-Elisabeth Rasmussen grew up outside the town of Gjøvik, but moved out of her home early.
His mother worked as a taxi driver and his father was a boat captain.
Tom Hagen is a trained engineer.
Before the couple moved to Lørenskog in 1982, they lived in Ringstad in the Grand Municipality.
There, according to the Hadeland newspaper, Anne-Elisabeth worked in a nursing home. She also worked in an ambulance.
– We had a very good relationship with them. They were outstanding people, a person who lived next door to the couple in Ringstad tells the Hadeland newspaper.
Already during the time in Ringstad, before the spouses moved to Lørenskog in the early 1980s, Tom Hagen had started earning a lot of money from his business activities. But according to the neighbor, with whom the Hadeland newspaper spoke, it was nothing he was talking about or joking about.
Tom Hagen has earned his money mainly in two industries. Real estate and energy.
In 2019 it was good for SEK 1.9 billion, according to the Kapital newspaper.
The Elkraft company started in the 90s together with the Marius Nerbye company. The company sells electricity to companies in the Nordic countries and since its inception in 1992 it has grown at a record rate.
billion
In less than 25 years, the company’s sales have increased in avalanche and today it is billions.
Tom Hagen currently owns 70 percent of Elkraft.
Over the years, however, he has not had many contacts with the media. Instead, it was the Marius Nerbye company that did most of the Elkraft interviews.
In addition to electric power, Tom Hagen has also invested heavily in real estate over the years. Newspapers VG and Dagens Næringsliv have continuously reviewed and reported on Hagens’ real estate offers.
According to the newspapers, he has made significant investments in the Kvitfjell ski resort, where he built country houses. According to Dagens Næringsliv, in the 2000s he became the largest owner of country houses in the area. It has also built conference facilities and “commercial farms”.
In 1997, Hagen had Coca-Cola build a new production plant in Lørenskog, and in 2006 he also made sure that Posten was established next door.
Both parcels were owned by a farmer in the area and, according to VG, were sold to Coca-Cola and Posten through the Hagens real estate company.
In 2018, the real estate company “Tom Hagen Eiendom” had an operating profit of just over NOK 41 million, according to VG.
Great skating enthusiast
Tom Hagen also has its own holding company, Holding 2. In 2017, according to E24, the turnover was SEK 2.39 billion, with a profit of SEK 174 million before tax.
Hagen is also a huge fan of ice skating. Before the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, he sponsored skater Johann Olov Koss.
Koss, who is also from Lørenskog, took three gold medals and set three world records at the Olympics.
Hagen started the association SK94 (Skating Club-94) where, according to VG magazine, he was also president. A member of the association was Geir Tvenge, who conducted an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in 2019.
It confirms Hagen’s image as a discreet and media shadow.
“Tom is not the one who talks about himself much,” Geir Tvange told Dagbladet, claiming that he knew nothing about Hagen’s wealth before reading it in the newspapers after his wife’s disappearance.
The central problem remains
After Tom Hagen was acquitted of suspicion and detained, the police investigation gained new momentum.
Another person, a man in his 30s, was arrested.
He was later released. However, suspicions against him remain.
But anyway. And despite Hagen’s arrest, expanded investigative resources, and new forensic investigations, it has not yet been possible to answer the more central question:
What happened to Anne-Elisabeth Hagen?
Sources: VG, NRK, Dagbladet, Dagens Næringsliv, Hadeland.no, Capital
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