Norwegian police will attempt to track Monero and Dash transactions in search of a millionaire’s wife

Norway’s National Cyber Crime Center will attempt to trace flows of transactions in Monero (XMR) and Dash (DASH) to track down the missing wife of millionaire Tom Hagen. This was reported by Verdens Gang.

According to police prosecutor Richard Bek Pedersen, privacy-focused cryptocurrencies pose the “biggest challenge” for investigations. He noted that to use such tools a criminal does not need to be a cryptography expert.

“I do not want to comment on what we have done or are doing in the context of Dash and Monero, as well as our achievements. However, I hope that this path will lead to an outcome important for the investigation,” Pedersen added.

In October 2018, Anna-Elisabeth Hagen disappeared from her own home. She presumably was abducted, as her husband found a ransom note.

The police concluded that the kidnapping had been planned in advance. At the end of June 2018, the alleged kidnappers created a password-protected electronic document containing two addresses: one for Bitcoin and one for Monero.

For the return of Hagen, unknown actors demanded €9 million in XMR.

In April 2020, Tom Hagen was arrested on suspicion of murdering Anna-Elisabeth. Police suspected that to conceal the crime’s traces he staged the kidnapping.

In February 2021, Islamists demanded a ransom in Monero from India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.

Earlier, analytical company CipherTrace filed two patents for technology for tracking transactions in the network of anonymous cryptocurrency.