A 30-year-old man from Bærum was sentenced in Oslo District Court earlier this week to six years and five months in prison.[1] The court held that he had a central role in the Swedish-origin narcotics network «Den skandinaviska kranen», which has taken root in Norway.[1] The court found he had acted as a runner, a depot keeper and a distributor, moving and storing narcotics for the network.[1]
He admitted working for the network and was convicted of fetching and selling more than 34 kilograms of cannabis, amphetamine and cocaine over nine days in April last year.[1] He was also convicted of storing 4.8 kilograms of hashish and 487 grams of cocaine.[1] He was convicted of securing proceeds from narcotics sales, receiving and handing on more than 530,000 kroner in one day in April last year.[1]
Police lawyer Miriam Kaya Breistein, who led the case for the prosecution, said the charge rested largely on messaging correspondence rather than on seizures of drugs or money.[1] The Signal username «Joe», described in court as the network’s top leader, appeared in a conversation group on his phone that was said to have been used to organise drug sales.[1]
He came to police attention in April last year when he was stopped in a traffic control and appeared, in the court’s words, heavily intoxicated.[1] Cocaine and a softgun were found in the car, for which he was convicted of breaching the weapons law and drug-impaired driving.[1] Police also found a bunch of keys marked with the address of a flat in Oslo, where they found cocaine, hashish, a scale and packaging equipment.[1] Some of the seized drugs were found hidden inside a pizza box, and ten hashish plants of 100 grams each were found in a Norwegian postal package.[1]
The sentence was lower than the prosecution’s demand of seven years in prison, and was imposed under the so-called mafia paragraph, which allows stricter penalties for organised criminal groups.[1] His defence lawyer, Chamkor Singh Nagra, said the sentence would be appealed.[1]
