Original subtitles

A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY SERIES

Shall we start at the beginning?

I would say if you put all your cards on the table,

that you've made amends. Then you're untouchable.

We can start with that. What is this person's name?

Eirik.

- Surname? - Jensen.

The former police officer Eirik Jensen...

- Eirik Jensen... - Eirik Jensen...

Jensen. Jensen...

...has been charged with smuggling several tons of hashish to Norway,

as well as corruption for several million krone.

Eirik Jensen is one of the most trusted police officers in Norway.

There's another blast!

When the police needed to clean up, they used Eirik.

I'm also a man of dialogue. I speak to a lot of communities.

He was closer to the criminals than his own colleagues.

This is, in fact,

one of the most incredible crime stories in modern times.

The most orderly cop I've dealt with in my time.

Soft around the edges, but he made things work.

This is a case that raises more questions than it answers.

So I thought, "Damn, did he fool me? Did he fool us?"

Jensen. Do you plead guilty of this charge?

No.

How could it be

that one of Norway's most trusted police officers

is suddenly in danger of receiving the law's maximum sentence?

Is Jensen a cop or a crook?

Eirik Jensen holds the answers. Eirik Jensen has the whole story.

But he's not telling it.

INTERVIEW EIRIK JENSEN - TAKE 3

EIRIK JENSEN, THE ENIGMA

I've been sentenced to Norway's maximum punishment,

twenty-one years in prison.

Every day I'm in here

is another wasted day.

I think about everything I'm missing out on.

Everything is gone.

I've in no way come to terms with the situation I find myself in.

It's a catastrophe for me.

It's a catastrophe for my family.

That's what I sit in my cell and think about.

Day in and day out, it's always on my mind. Why did it happen?

NORWAY - SWEDEN

The f ormer police commander Eirik Jensen

is charged with severe drug crimes and corruption.

The most important witness is Gjermund Cappelen.

In court, Cappelen explained how he for almost 30 years

smuggled so much hashish that it arrived in large trucks.

...with the help of Jensen.

Jensen claims Cappelen

has only been his informant for all these years.

Gjermund Cappelen has been one

of my best informants for years.

I let him get close to me.

I've helped him with a lot of critical and difficult situations.

And when he then chooses to stab me in the back like he did,

I didn't expect that.

I've been a policeman for more than 30 years.

POLICE

And have for most of that time worked in organized crime and narcotics.

That's the paradox.

That I've allegedly done the exact opposite.

Namely that of being a criminal who has earned a pile of money

by being dirty.

And that's my claim. I am not.

My name is John Malden.

I've been in the police force for 33 years.

Uh, surveillance, the Uro-patrol, organized crime.

You could say I've had an active police career.

You are stepping into a world,

with its own... its own codex.

And if you don't understand that world's codex,

you won't be able to communicate with the criminals themselves.

When it comes to the Eirik Jensen case,

you have to understand where he's coming from

and what kind of methods were used back in the day.

And if people don't understand that, they won't understand Jensen.

In the capitol, people have gone to bed.

Evening has become nighttime.

That's when the Uro-squad make their move.

- Yes, hello. - It's Eirik.

- Who? - Eirik Jensen.

You'll remember if you think about it. I need to talk to you.

- I come in peace. - That won't work.

Think carefully now.

Police!

Stand still!

- What's this, then? - Look at this.

Merchandise, guys!

I would say Eirik Jensen is one

of the most fascinating police personalities.

in recent Norwegian history.

When you see Eirik Jensen, hear him speak,

you think that he doesn't look like a cop.

In my opinion, he was quite scruffy and not like most policemen.

Jeans, earring, ponytail.

He was quite unorthodox.

In my opinion, Jensen represents the old school.

His time with the Uro during the 80s is...

...it's almost like watching a Dirty Harry movie.

You have drugs up your ass. Can you take them out?

- Yes. - You're taking them out yourself?

It was a completely different regime to what it is today.

I've found about ten and a half ounces,

plus some money.

The initial spark came when I joined the Uro-patrol.

I wanted to be the best at what I did.

Meaning informants, investigations and thinking creatively.

That's what drove me.

Eirik Jensen worked an incredible amount in his time

with the Uro-patrol.

And everyone was impressed by his efficiency,

his contact with the criminal world,

and last but not least,

the results he delivered.

Already in the '80s,

Eirik Jensen started recruiting informants from different parts of society.

And, uh, most people generally don't want to be informants.

It's not a want. It's not something people want.

But by catching them with drugs,

or that they are in situations where they need to get out,

you can sometimes turn people into informants.

And Eirik Jensen was clearly good at it.

An informant is someone who reports to the police

on happenings in the criminal world.

He's often a criminal himself.

Being an informant, or snitch as the criminals call it,

is one of the most dangerous things to do.

It could lead to death, even with just a suspicion.

Informant handling is basically an extremely cynical business.

When people are in vulnerable situations,

you have to take advantage of that to get what you want.

In this environment, you have to use all the tricks.

Manipulation.

A pat on the back.

You're dealing with hardcore people who never trust anyone.

You have to gain their trust.

You play to their premise.

Which means you give something to get something.

And you help out when they have a problem.

That builds trust, and I receive information.

I've dealt with a lot of different people and personalities

over the last 26, 27 years.

So obviously, I've pushed the boundaries

and maybe sometimes crossed those boundaries.

And nobody did anything but give you a pat you on the back

because you got it done.

My first meeting with Eirik Jensen was back in the 1980s.

I knew Eirik Jensen as a stable, good colleague.

Uh, somewhat stubborn.

You had to have really good reasons

for solving a case differently to how Eirik Jensen suggested.

One of Eirik Jensen's traits was that he didn't like bosses.

We could both agree on how to do something in my office,

and he would leave and do something completely different.

I didn't have much contact with him. He never asked for anything.

After the fact, I can say

I should have controlled him more.

Besides being unorthodox and, uh, difficult to control,

there weren't any big problems

He gave us lots of information.

Solved cases, so we were satisfied, right?

He had his own way of doing police work

that often produced major results.

Let's see.

EIRIK JENSEN'S EX-WIFE CECILIE BLEGEBERG

So this is Eirik in the Philippines.

It was nice and warm.

We lived in a cosy little bamboo hut.

This is when Eirik wanted to get a tattoo.

He thought he was so tough.

Well, Eirik and I met...

We actually met through work.

He worked with the police in a unit called Uro.

Uh, I struggle with my Norwegian.

The Uro-patrol.

I worked at Smuget.

And my dear bosses at Smuget wanted to keep Smuget free of drugs.

So that's why I got in touch with Eirik

and asked him if they wanted to become our guests and members.

My bosses and I, we thought that if the police visit a nightclub,

the crooks will avoid it.

And it worked great.

He was shy.

In private, he was shy.

He was standing there with his thumbs in his jeans

and kicked shyly in the dirt, looking down bashfully.

But I saw that he was in love.

And he had flirty eyes.

That made me feel safe.

It could be a bit dangerous to work in a nightclub

where we had guests who got angry when we wouldn't let them in and so on.

I thought that, "No. I have Eirik, the policeman."

"He can protect me from anything. It's not dangerous."

Ah, it's so strange to think back on this.

Because I didn't know what I know now.

He always wanted to be right.

He wanted to pound his chest, as he called it,

when he was the best, and he always was.

And he followed his own rules.

Apparently, he hung out with people on the wrong side of the law.

I thought that he got more and more into, uh,

How should I put it? The MC scene or...

I don't know.

The MC war is coming to Norway.

Sunday, March 10, a member of Bandidos is shot in the chest outside Fornebu Airport.

Four days later, a Hells Angels supporter is shot in downtown Oslo.

A car bomb explodes outside the Hells Angels' headquarters in Oslo.

There were many aspects

of Eirik Jensen that became controversial.

One of these was his handling of the MC groups Hells Angels,

Bandidos and other so-called one-percent groups.

Yeah, so it was the beginning of the big Nordic MC war

at the end of the '90s.

The police were quick in drawing the conclusion

that it was about selling drugs,

but it could be a lot more trivial than that.

An insult, a fight in a bar

or someone taking someone's else's vest.

There are some unwritten rules.

The Bandidos headquarters in Drammen

was blown up about 15 minutes ago.

The situation here now is so chaotic

that I don't think...

And there's another blast!

Another blast in Nybyen. I have to move further...

The MC war continues.

Because of the war between the MC clubs, Hells Angels and...

These damn killers have to be caught!

Most people might know who I am.

Thore Henki Holm Hansen.

I'm infamous for establishing Outlaws MC in Norway, in 1995.

The first time I met Eirik was at a pub.

We met at Hydra MC's bar in Nesodden.

He was having a beer there, and so was I.

We got talking and had a lot in common.

And we became friends after that.

But it wasn't until later that I actually heard he was a drug cop.

It was a weird place to meet a drug cop...

...of all places.

But he wasn't there to bust anyone.

He was there to have a beer and to take it easy.

If we saw some of the guys, maybe...

...powdered their noses or something,

I looked at him, and he said,

"No, I'm not at work. Don't look at me."

"This is my time off."

So that was not what he was looking for.

He was just a boy on his time off.

A really nice boy.

We could party together without being worried about the cops

always looking over your shoulder.

The police have a very conservative idea

of how a policeman should be.

I stood out, not only because I rode a motorcycle,

but also because I had a lot of contacts and friends in the biker scene.

I told my bosses that I would keep in contact with them regardless.

Not to abuse the trust I had out there,

but it gave me a unique opportunity to understand them better

and could improve the police's efforts, at least in Oslo,

compared to many other places in the country.

Many were ready to use brute force.

But to use full tactical units

and blue lights every time,

seems like it didn't work in neither Sweden nor Denmark.

While Eirik did the opposite. He made contact with both sides.

And he eventually got them to talk to each other.

That dialogue model is Eirik Jensen's, uh,

creative suggestion.

At the core of Eirik's method

was standing firm and saying what he meant.

While at the same time, showing respect for others.

His strength was being able to talk to them properly,

so that they could understand and respect the way that he worked.

Then I said now it's time for a small course

on what is acceptable behaviour and what's not.

And after that, there was a long list of issues.

Don't use patches in restaurants.

Don't besiege the Leopard nightclub and take control of the place

by helping yourself to the bar.

They are not to carry weapons and a bunch of things like that

that they had committed themselves to.

And they have to be nice and polite with the police.

It was... it was a long list.

He promised them nothing but problems

if they didn't do what they had agreed to.

And they agreed to it, almost without any trouble.

So there is another way of doing it.

PRIVATE NO ENTRY

Hells Angels and Bandidos actually had mutual Christmas parties

and met each other in town without there being any problems.

And that's very special. It wasn't like that in Sweden and Denmark.

He's probably the most orderly cop I have dealt with in my time.

Soft around the edges, but he made things work.

But I don't think...

well, I know that his colleagues weren't happy with what he was doing.

Well, you have to set boundaries between your private life and work.

And not let work mix with your private life and vice versa.

So many might say that you don't talk to criminals.

The only time you talk to them is during a trial.

So what is difficult for me as a policeman

is knowing when a criminal is using me.

You can get used...

in every which way.

When it comes to the MC scene,

we know that some of these MC clubs

are some of the strongest criminal organizations in the world.

So trying a dialogue model in Oslo

that failed in the rest of the world sounds a little bit naive.

He was closer to the criminals than his own colleagues.

EIRIK JENSEN'S MOTHER EVA JENSEN

Regardless of what he was doing,

I think he always knew what was right and what was wrong.

He may have been borderline, but he was always on the right side.

He was.

This is Eirik's report cards that you found.

- Stumbled across it the other day. - Yes.

"Can Eirik stay inside during breaks?"

"He has a broken left arm."

I remember that.

"Eirik was not at school yesterday."

"He was at the doctor's with a sprained ankle."

"Can he stay inside for a week during breaks?"

"And also..."

"And also skip gym class while he's still wearing a bandage?

We had to...

"Eirik hurt his right hand yesterday afternoon at football practice."

"He has therefore not done his Norwegian homework."

Here's the class photo. Eirik's class photo.

- Do you recognize him? - Is that him?

- Yes, can you believe that's him? - Yeah.

My impression is that it seemed like he had a bit of ADHD.

Yes, you had to pay attention to him.

You were never sure what he... what the day could bring.

When Eirik was little,

the last thing I thought he would become was a policeman.

But he applied to the police academy

and got in, and it was non-stop after that.

We noticed after a while that we had less contact with him.

No, when we were together,

he often got... got a call and suddenly had to leave.

He put work before family.

And he's admitted that.

And it's of course, something he... he regrets to this day.

But it was something he enjoyed. He loved... loved his job.

He was very interested.

So... so he was the right man in the right place,

at least in my opinion.

Hmm, yes, I agree.

My name is Shahid Rasool.

I was in prison for 12 years.

And I was described as the so-called, uh, leader

of Young Guns and the A gang.

It started at a time when there was a lot of racism,

so these youths would walk around, beating up the racists, as they called it.

But eventually, a few other things were added.

- Can you expand on that? - Nah, that's not worth going into.

THE GANG WAR... BLOODY CLASH OVER LOST HONOUR

THE WAR BETWEEN OSLO'S GANGS ESCALATES

The group calls themselves Young Guns

and has been accused of fighting and assault in recent weeks.

I was a member of Young Guns in the 2000s.

There was a very clear picture of the gang scene

You got Young Guns. You got the B gang, A gang,

and our nemesis at the time was the B gang,

without many of us even knowing why.

POINTLESS WAR

I was extremely violent.

And this isn't a movie. This is real.

Like, it's real blood. It's real tears.

You can taste the gunpowder after you have taken a shot,

and you... you take it all in.

But in that environment, I don't talk about my mental health at all.

"I don't feel so good today. I am... I'm thinking about what we did yesterday."

Like, forget about it, it doesn't exist.

You go from one thing to another, then another, then another.

All the way. The pace is fast, constantly.

Talk about feelings, fuck that.

A 23-year-old Pakistani boy was found killed

in a parking lot in Romsås...

Men walked over to a black BMW and shot at least six shots...

One was injured. A typical gang clash, police say.

Even more public shootings.

It's gotten so bad that ordinary people are scared to go out at night.

These incidents were an eye-opener for politicians and others.

The minister of justice promised to clamp down on gangs.

A decision was made to find a method to deal with these street gangs,

and it had to happen fast.

So the politicians decided that Oslo police district

would establish its own project team.

And it would be led by Eirik Jensen.

He would be provided with sufficient resources

and the best uniformed officers the district had.

Now it was time to roll up our sleeves and start delivering.

Now the work with gaining the upper hand

on these gangs begins.

The Oslo police have now warned of zero tolerance

for gang-related crime.

Eirik was extremely dedicated and, uh, was really in his element.

We are proud today, when we can display so many weapons.

That's how I came to know him.

Eirik, to me, is the guy in the gang project

who somehow handled a thousand things

and was at work 24/7. He lived and breathed this.

He had a goal, and he would reach it, no matter the cost.

The subject is delivering something to someone this evening.

Eirik Jensen is the chief of the gang project,

but that doesn't mean he's behind a desk waiting for results.

He's out on the streets, making contacts in the gangs.

You won't get anywhere if you don't know who you're dealing with.

When I was a gang member,

my attitude towards the police was that they were pigs.

That's how we saw them. We'd stay far away.

The rules of the gang,

first and foremost, are don't talk to the cops.

That's a no-go, regardless, no snitching.

These worlds are very tight, so you have to be on the inside.

And it took a while before we managed that.

I experienced the gang project very clearly.

Things changed dramatically from one day to the other.

The police were on us constantly, followed us on foot, mapped our movements,

recruit more informants among us and so on and so on.

But at the same time,

the way it was done was based on a different method.

I came to mutual respect.

We understand you a little. We see your humanity.

I never ever heard Eirik talk negatively about a criminal.

He respected everyone, regardless of what they'd done

and treated them accordingly.

I think that creates... creates a bit of trust and respect in these environments.

Because the rest of society was like, "Let them shoot each other."

"Ship them in containers, let 'em kill each other."

But the police had a different approach.

It was like, okay, take out your hand, greet each other.

Because then they could also find out more,

become a little more personal.

That they knew a lot more about us and stuff

and could perhaps more easily find out who wanted out and who might,

and so on and so forth.

There was a period where there were almost no gang members left.

All of them were either in jail or under some form of observation.

We had actually managed to clean up properly.

The gang project turned Eirik Jensen into a kind of celebrity cop.

He wasn't just popular among management, but also among journalists.

Of course, I'm also a man of dialogue.

I speak to a lot of communities.

That's also led to some victories.

This was Eirik Jensen's glory days.

He got an incredible amount of praise.

He became known as "the super cop."

The super policeman.

We know that Eirik Jensen was a pioneer.

He's been a front man in regards to gangs and the MC clubs.

Uh, what makes him have that special position,

we don't know.

We actually don't.

Eirik Jensen was a closed book.

The criminals are always waiting to take advantage of you as a cop.

There's always a catch. There is no free lunch.

The pitfalls of the criminal world is of course

that the criminals can control the police.

And I can say it like it is.

This is something I have experienced myself.

That someone tried to buy me off.

Maybe the most important reason

Eirik Jensen is able to get as far as he does,

is that he is damn good at talking with people,

and in doing so, he gathers a network of informants.

One of these informants will prove to be especially valuable.

And will end up being his nemesis.

Gjermund Cappelen.

The first time I met him was in 1993.

But there was another detective who had the case in the beginning,

called, uh, Olsen. Øyvind... Øyvind Olsen.

I knew about Cappelen from before.

He was known in our system for selling hashish.

We had the information, but we didn't have anything on him.

Cappelen was spotted driving in downtown Oslo.

The surveillance team's objective was to follow him

and find out what he did on a daily basis.

The surveillance moves to downtown Oslo...

where Cappelen disappears into the garage of the Oslo Plaza Hotel.

One of the investigators managed to spot Cappelen getting into the elevator

and which floor it stopped at.

We checked the hotel records

and discovered that a very dangerous criminal is staying on that floor.

At the same time, things are happening very fast.

Outside the hotel,

the surveillance cars have positioned themselves to cover all possible exits.

Suddenly, Cappelen comes speeding out of the garage in his car.

So now things need to happen fast. Decisions must be made.

Do we let Cappelen drive into the city,

perhaps with a load of drugs in the car?

Then it was decided.

To ram him.

Cappelen is in shock, I assume.

Tries to... to get out of the situation.

He hadn't done anything wrong. He hadn't met anyone.

We didn't do this. He didn't do that.

The other criminal was arrested afterwards.

And they found amphetamine and weapons on the night stand in the hotel room.

Cappelen is scared of going to prison. He doesn't like it.

And that's how we got the upper hand on him.

So I presented him with the possibility

of a more lenient treatment

in exchange for him being our informant.

And he eventually agreed.

Like he's grasping for the last straw

so he can avoid being taken into custody.

I thought about handing him over to someone else who could keep tabs on him

and saw Eirik Jensen further down the corridor.

I thought, "Yes, he's a good guy to take on that role."

So I introduced him to Cappelen,

and we went into the office, and they talked together and...

and found the necessary chemistry to make it work.

I reckon I saw someone sly, a chameleon.

I realized right away that he had the potential for...

He lied with ease. Put it that way.

And he's willing and cynical enough

to... to expose people in his own social circle.

The informant does not appear in a single document.

He's anonymous, so code names are used.

Cappelen was registered under the code name GT007.

So he thought 007 was really cool.

He wanted to be, uh, a super agent and worked hard for it.

I think Cappelen turned informant because he wanted to be seen

and that he wanted to release the excitement.

It is exciting, but it's also clearly dangerous.

And it later proved to be too dangerous.

Jensen and Cappelen's first big case together is in the fall of 1993,

and it's known as the "Plane Drop Case."

The Plane Drop Case eventually became a big case.

An import of large amounts of amphetamine.

The build-up to the Plane Drop Case is controversial.

But according to Eirik Jensen's version,

this is about Gjermund Cappelen,

who had got to know a bunch of shady characters...

...and bragged about how he had amazing contacts in Holland

and could get whatever amount of amphetamine

with only a few days' notice.

Someone heard about this.

Uh, and the people listening were members

of the so-called Mob of the North.

The Mob of the North was, at the time, the most talked about violent gang.

The leader was a strongman who wasn't afraid

to use his muscle against other people.

DRUG RING WITH MAFIA-LIKE DISCIPLINE

So the Mob of the North seeks out Cappelen and threatens him

and says, "You'll help us with this, or things will not end well for you."

He comes to me and tells me he's been threatened.

"They want me to get them a hundred kilos of amphetamine."

"And they're completely nuts." That's more or less word for word.

Then a decision was made. "Okay, we're in."

And the basis for their decision was of the principle of necessity.

And this led to Cappelen taking on the role

of finding out what was going to happen, when it would happen.

Then the race was on, and it never stopped.

My name is Gunnar Evertsen,

and in the early '90s, I sold a lot of dope in Oslo.

Yes, anyways. Cappelen comes to my door

and, uh, offers to arrange ten kilos of amphetamine for me.

So we agreed to drive down the next day.

And we go. We drive, uh, a white Camaro

with me in the passenger seat and Gjermund in the back seat.

We made a quick stop in Christiania,

where I bought some hash for the journey, then we drive to Holland.

We check into a hotel that I can't remember the name of.

And as soon as we got there,

Gjermund started setting up the amphetamine deal.

I think it was less than a fucking hour

after we checked in that I had the bag in the room.

With ten kilos of amphetamine.

I check out the goods. The quality is good.

But we had no means of transport.

I'd been in southern Norway and spoke to the pilot,

and he was absolutely not interested at all in doing this trip in '93.

We already knew this before we bought the goods.

But oddly enough, it sorted itself out afterwards.

Oddly enough, the pilot later contacted me.

He could do the trip after all.

So this plane was on its way to Norway,

but we didn't know where it was going to land or drop or whatever.

So we placed surveillance bases all along the coast.

And then the plane was spotted.

There's a police detective on top of a tree filming this Cessna airplane...

...gliding over the beautiful forests of southern Norway.

And he catches the plane on film as it flies over

and sees the drop from the plane into a small body of water.

So the evidence is very compelling, what happened.

DRUG DROP FROM PLANE

AMPHETAMINE RING THE ARREST

Everyone was arrested.

I haven't the darnedest idea how many we locked up, but it was quite a lot.

TEN CAUGHT LAST NIGHT

This case, at the time, was a success.

It was a large shipment of amphetamine.

We had got our hands on the Mob of the North,

which we knew were committing crimes.

So, uh, we were able to stop them,

which we were happy about, so we had marzipan cake at work.

I fell for it. Straight into the trap.

Well, the versions of the Plane Drop Case

told by Øyvind Olsen and Eirik Jensen is, put mildly, incorrect.

So fuck them.

Fuck Eirik Jensen to hell and back. What an idiot.

What was he thinking?

Didn't he realize that he was being used from day one?

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