Norwegian Netflix crime-drama series The Lorenskog Disappearance is a dramatized semi-fictional retelling of a high-profile case that rocked Norway in 2018. After the kidnapping of a billionaire’s wife from her own home, Norwegian police investigated clues and theories in various cases to try to solve the already complicated case. Bringing us closer to the characters on both sides of the case, The Disappearance of Lorenskog offers a fun watch with an air of mystery still intact as the case is actually still open.

Who Is Anne?

One morning in October 2018, Norwegian billionaire Tom Hagen left his mansion in Lorenskog, an area near Oslo for his regular visit to his office in the Futurum business park. As usual, he tried throughout the morning to call his wife Anne-Elisabeth Hagen, but after several attempts, she received no answer. He returned home around 1:30 p.m., stressed about his wife’s health, and surprisingly found Anne nowhere in the house. Clear evidence of a fight in the house and a letter left behind made it perfectly clear what had happened: Anne had been kidnapped by someone from her own household.

Tom immediately contacted the police and the authorities responded quickly, arriving at the scene and beginning the investigation. The biggest challenge, however, was the content of the letter he left behind; In it, the kidnappers threatened to harm Anne or even kill her if Tom and his family contacted the police or the media. Their demand was that Tom wires them a ransom of €9 million in Monero cryptocurrency to get his wife back. But the kidnappers also mentioned directly to that they had been keeping an eye on the family for quite some time and would therefore know immediately if they contacted the police and the press.

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In that case, they coolly mention, that they would choose personal safety over money and run away after killing Anne. Faced with these threats from the kidnappers and the fact that Tom Hagen was a high-profile businessman with well-known companies in electrical and real estate development, the police had to tread carefully and decided to keep the case to themselves. The investigation team, led by Jorunn Lakke, must find detours and indirect ways to ask the neighbors and locals for leads, as they don’t want anyone to know that Anne is missing. But nothing useful is found, and they also talk a lot with Anne’s family.

One piece of information now stands out as Tom states that in the days leading up to the incident and particularly the night before, he felt someone was being secretly followed and watched. It seems inconsistent when traces of blood are found inside the house that were attempted to be cleaned, but there were no such efforts to remove the marks of the struggle or the marks of the woman who was dragged. With all these confusing clues and the gradual media coverage of the entire scene, the Norwegian police find themselves in a race against time, and the kidnappers trying to find Anne-Elisabeth Hagen alive.

When the police began investigating the case, one of their original plans was to put the Hagen family in touch with the kidnappers. They had a code to talk to the kidnappers about bitcoin, but the family refused to leave. He continued the plan, saying that the kidnappers were well aware that no one in the family was that knowledgeable about modern technology, and they would immediately understand that they were getting outside help. But without this tip, the police couldn’t get any further. and so Jorunn ordered his tech expert to send a message to the kidnappers on behalf of the family and then lied that it was accidental. His plan was to trace back the reply to that message and find the culprit, but the reply didn’t come until eight days later and the location from which it was sent couldn’t be easily traced.

For this reason, especially due to the fact that the kidnappers were very slow to respond to messages or even funds from the family, the police began to suspect that it could all be an act. They later found out that Anne wasn’t really happy in her long marriage to Tom and even signed an amazing prenuptial agreement. This agreement clearly stated that Anne would receive none of Tom’s wealth and fortune apart from a meager €200,000,

and this was not the only unhealthy thing about their marriage. Apparently, her husband kept a close eye on Anne and now he was asking for a divorce. Later, the police also found a divorce document that Anne had already signed but Tom had not, and all of this quickly made Tom Hagen the prime suspect.

About eighteen months after the incident, in 2021, Tom Hagen was arrested by police and any suspicions quickly became public. The alleged charges against Tom were the ones police had just found because his possible disagreement over divorcing his wife meant he had a clear motive for committing the crime. Tom Hagen apparently denied such claims and said that he and Anne were very happy in their marriage, but he was remanded in custody for up to a fortnight. Tom’s defense attorney managed to find a snag in the prosecution’s case, as one of the main allegations was that Tom had deleted the record of him calling his wife from his phone and lied to the police, which he had not done.

But it was determined that the phone Tom had been using had stored call records no more than 6 times for any one number and therefore it was the phone that had deleted the records and not Tom. Additionally, Tom was found to be extremely backward in technology as the man could barely use computers or smartphones and it was far too much to believe that he was pretending to be the kidnapper while talking about cryptocurrencies. It was suggested that someone else might have helped him with this, and his close management adviser to, Ivar Eng, was questioned on the matter. Although nothing concrete could be found, it has always been suspected that Ivar had told Tom about cryptocurrencies, especially Monero, and even mentioned that it was mainly Monero, just a few days before the hijacking

Used by criminals because the sender and receiver of funds can never be traced through this cryptocurrency. In the several months since the kidnapping, multiple searches of all of Tom’s belongings have been conducted to find Anne’s body or anything suspicious, but nothing of the sort has ever been found. Ultimately, Tom Hagen was released from police custody just ten days after his arrest after the court overturned the police decision.

In addition to detailing the case’s course of action and results, The Lorenskog Disappearance also makes a point of digging a little deeper into the characters and describing how the case affected them. The police come first, of course. Researcher Jorunn Lake had already experienced tragedy in her life when her mother died in a car accident about twenty years ago. Since that accident, her father has also become disoriented in life, sometimes confusing her with her mother. Doctors diagnosed his condition as Alzheimer’s, and by the end of the series, the man has trouble remembering ordinary, everyday things.

In the end, Jorunn learns that Tom Hagen was in fact one of his father’s schoolmates, and although the father does not remember recent events, he says that Tom was a very good boy at school, always shy and introverted. He asks if Tom did something wrong and Jorunn has to admit that he just doesn’t know. Fall for, the country’s leading newspaper. Erlend was also helped directly by Jorunn’s team in secret as he received and wrote about inside tips so the police could mount a case against Tom Hagen.

The media did become a mouthpiece for police theories, and Aleks wasn’t happy about that. Having a personal history of police immorality, he looked at other possible suspects in the case and wrote about a group of criminal money launderers who ran an auto repair shop and who could very well have carried out the kidnapping. However, no one paid attention to her theory at the time, and a frustrated Aleks quit her job as a journalist and instead focused on making a documentary on the subject. On the other hand, Erlend was always very sure that it was definitely Tom Hagen who killed his wife. Erlend’s own father, a well-known and respected journalist, and editor, regularly controlled and assaulted his wife, and Erlend had made it his life’s goal to uncover those misogynist offenders who ran away solely because of their social status.

For him, it was all about proving guilt to Tom Hagen, but what he couldn’t see was how the case had made him the very thing he hated. When his wife asks him not to pursue dangerous leads in the case and a heated argument ensues in, Erlend presses his wife hard, almost repeating his father’s actions. Also, at the end, he is seen preparing an article to slander Tom and the mainstream media to clear him of any suspicion as Erlend still believes it was Tom who killed Anne.

The Criminal Gang Theory

More than two years had passed and the police still have not been able to find hard evidence against any of their suspects and they still have not been able to find Anne. At that time, a certain criminal named Mattis contacted the police to make a deal. He wanted to be transferred to a prison with fewer restrictions and in return promised to reveal information about the Lorenskog case. When Jorunn and his team sat down to talk to him, Mattis told them how he met Tom. for about

years. Mattis had become close to a man named Peter Vam and together they started a rich man trap scam where they had men attracted to a young woman who also worked with them and then took photos of some of their moments that were then used to blackmail men.

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It was this woman that Mattis first heard about from billionaire Tom, as he seemed to have visited the place at least once, if not more. Afterward, Mattis had an argument with Vam, and as he began to follow the man to get revenge, he discovered that Vam was now closely associated with two men named Edon and Allan Kirap, who were running a drug deal. The Kiraps had a family car repair shop in Norway and this was the same repair shop that Aleks had written about in his unpublished article and Mattis

heard the next part of the story from one of the Kirap brothers. Apparently, the Kiraps had been assigned to help Edon with one of his plans, and together they set off for Lorenskog in a van Night and the next morning they returned with a kidnapped woman.

What this theory might suggest is that Tom Hagen had become the target of these criminal gangsters and may have already had money extorted from him through the sex scandal. Maybe they wanted more now and had kidnapped his wife in a planned pit and killed Anne after not getting the money demanded. Police could not fully trust such an account as there were now countless individuals, particularly criminals, seeking a deal with authorities

claiming to have legitimate information on the case. Everything Mattis said was also something he heard, but the police still took his report as a lead.

They went to Spain to meet  Peter Vam, but the man denied any involvement. Although Jorunn and his team attempted to bring Vam back to Norway to investigate, the man somehow managed to escape and flee to Dubai. A woman involved in the sex scandal was also under investigation but had mysteriously disappeared after catching a ferry to Sweden. To top it off, Mattis became very scared that some of Vam’s men who were present at the new prison had been moved and feared they would harm him.

Unfortunately, the man was found dead in his own cell, having apparently hanged himself to death. In the end, this theory could not be proven either, since the police could not gain anything tangible from this perspective either.

Where Is Anne And Tom Hagen Now?

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The Disappearance of Lorenskog clearly states that the events it depicts are dramatic recreations of real things that happened in reality. While the characters and their own inner stories are in all likelihood fiction, the main structure of events and insights are true. The case of the missing billionaire’s wife actually shocked Norway in 2018, and since then there have been many discussions and attempts to solve it. So far, none of the suspects or angles in the Case have been fully investigated. and they all took the police elsewhere.

The crypto account mentioned for sending the ransom was also investigated by the police, but it turned out to be an account created through a fake and stolen identity. The fate of Anne-Elisabeth Hagen remains tragically unclear. since neither she nor her body was found. No new information or communications from the kidnappers have been reported either, and Anne appears to be lost forever. the police wanted to arrest him again, but could not due to a lack of solid evidence.

Tom is still a successful businessman in Norway, and he also appeared in an interview with the national channel Norwegian Broadcasting, where he still maintains his innocence. The exact fate of the Lorenskog kidnapping case may never come to light, and the series attempts to portray the theories that could have existed. The Disappearance of Lorenskog is a 2022 drama thriller miniseries streaming on Netflix.

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