Erik Strand, 13.10.2024
A scandal involving the stepson of Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon Magnus has been unfolding in Norway. A collection of articles in Norwegian about the case can be found here. Here, I will give a summary of the case, refering to some Norwegian online newspapers which have covered the scandal. I start with some necessary background.
Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon Magnus met Mette-Marit (born Mette Marit Tjessem Høiby) at a festival in Kristiansand in 1999. The couple moved together the next year and were married in 2001. Mette-Marit had a son, Marius Borg Høiby (born January 1997) when she met Haakon Magnus. The father of Marius is Morten Borg, who is convicted for severe drug related crimes. Morten Borg never lived with Mette-Marit or was her boyfriend.
On Monday September 09, 2024, the magazine Se og Hør could reveal that the crown prince’s stepson had been approached by two undercover police agents at the crown prince couple’s residence at Skaugum in the municipality of Asker during the autumn of 2023. Se og Hør is a Norwegian magazine focusing on celebrities and is by many considered a gossip magizine. In any case, Se og Hør has to be credited for doing a piece of revealing journalism in this case.
In a follow up article on 10.09.2024, one can read that the police agents they knew that Marius Borg Høiby had a serious cocaine problem, and that he hung out with people heavily into criminality. The police agents stressed that they had not come to arrest Borg Høiby, nor to fine him. They had come to warn him – in order to get him to cease his activities. The police agents said that Borg Høiby received this kind of special treatment because he belonged to the royal family. It was mentioned that the situation could become awkward as Borg Høiby is the son of the coming queen.
Se og Hør could confirm that a police officer, Frode Larsen, leader of the police unit “Enhet Sentrum, had answered the questions Se og Hør had sent the police five days earlier. He confirmed that the police had talked with Borg Høiby as a preventive measure, as the police does when indivituals might be in a criminal environment.
Se og Hør was in posession of a leaked tape containing the conversation between Borg Høiby and the two police officers. This made Se og Hør able to inform their readers that the two police officers did not visit Borg Høiby on their own initiative, but were asked to seek him by higher officers. This made Se og Hør ask the Oslo police some relevant questions, like who within the police had initiated the visit and whether the police chief was informed about Borg Høiby’s drug related problems, and whether the royal family and PST (Norwegian intelligence) were informed. The police declined to answer Se og Hør’s questions until they had seen the magazine’s documentation.
Se og Hør quotes from the conversation that the police agents tell Borg Høiby that the matter has alarmed the very top level in the Oslo police. They also say that the concern for Borg Høiby’s drug problems have been shared with several instances. In another part of the conversation the police agents repeat that they have been asked to find Borg Høiby and talk with him. When he asked who has asked them to do so, one of them replies. «Above my fucking pay grade».
Se og Hør comments that there are discrepancies between what the police agents say about orders coning from the highest echelons in the police, and what the police has told Se og Hør. The magazine also comments that the police’s reluctance to answer Se og Hør’s questions is in conflict with the police’s openness policy.
In a comment in the online newspaper INyheter, journalist Benjamin Bringås comments upon the case. The special treatment that Borg Høiby has received is in conflict with the principle of equal treatment, a central principle in a democratic society. In Bringsås’s comment he mentions that Se og Hør was warned in advance that people in his company were under investigation for drug related crimes, and that it was a matter of huge quantities of drugs. This was based on information from inside informers. According to Bringsås’s comment, Borg Høiby shall have bragged to his contacts in the criminal environment that he was protected by the police.
This information leads to a serious question – can Borg Høiby have used the warning he received from the police in order to warn his criminal friends? There is nothing that suggests that Borg Høiby ceased participating in crime related activities after the talk with the two police agents. After all, it was first in the summer of 2024 that Borg Høiby was charged with violence aginst former girlfriends.
And the warnings given to Borg Høiby may indeed have caused severe harm to police investigation of drug trafficking. In a comment in Se og Hør on September 17. 2024, journalist Ulf André Andersen comments upon the possibility that the warning given to Borg Høiby may have destroyed the police’s investigation of the Bama case. The Bama case was the big drug related crime investigated by Norwegian police during the same period as the talk between Borg Høiby and the police. The Bama case is a case where cocaine worth billions of Norwegian kroner was smuggled from South America in banana cases. Ulf André Andersen discusses the possibility that the fact that the police warned Borg Høiby can have given people involved in the case an opportunity to escape justice, by leaving Norway or adjusting their explanations. The police may thus have sabotaged/spoilt their own investigation.
They are not allowed to write about it
In another follow up article on September 18, 2024, Se og Hør reveals more content from the conversation between Borg Høiby and the police. Borg Høiby tells the police agents that he is not afraid of being caught. When the police agents warn Borg Høiby that he can be caught for drug related crime, the tape recording reveals that he replies as follows:
“But, really, they are not allowed to write about it. That is an agreement. So that is nothing to think about. No, no. So I am not worried about that. That is not the problem”.
One of the police agents objects that there are other places than VG – Norway’s largest newspaper – where informaton about him can be presented. He then replies in a quite revealing way:
“Yes, yes. Are you crazy. And it does too. Every single day. Yes, yes. And I could not care less”.
As to the “agreement” Borg Høiby refers to, Se og Hør suggests that it could have to do with a letter Mette-Marit wrote to Norwegian media about blowing out instances of youthful thoughtlessness, as when some media covered Borg Høiby as a 15 years old boy posting photos from the royal family’s holidays om Instagram or trying to sell some expensive items, like a Louis Vuitton bag, on the Internet, giving the castle as an address, as well as providing his own phone number.
Whatever Borg Høiby refers to, expecting media silence regarding serious criminal activity is something more sinister, and Norwegian media has a dark record in silencing shady conditions (not involving the royal family).
Warned in adwance before arrest
In an article in Se og Hør on September 08, 2024, One can read that Borg Høiby was arrested on september 4. He was arrested in a case concerning violence against his former girlfriend and damaging her flat. According to Se og Hør (and Norway’s largest newspaper, VG,), Borg Høiby was warned in advance that the police was going to arrest him. This special treatment from the police gave him some time to tamper with evidence. When the police arrived, the state of his mobile phone made it difficult for the police to secure the content on the phone. The mobile phone was then broken, to the possible detriment to the investigation in a case where women have suffered physical and psychological violence.
Fampo 