Norway jails three over 67,000 US silver coins tied to American fraud scheme
Norwegian police recovered nearly 67,000 American Eagle silver coins worth $2.65m after a tip about a swerving van near Oslo. Three Norwegians were sentenced for aggravated money laundering.
Swerving van outside Oslo leads to $2.65m silver coin haul in money laundering case
Norwegian police recovered nearly 67,000 American Eagle silver coins worth at least 25 million Norwegian krone (about $2.65 million) after a routine traffic stop outside Oslo, abcnews.com reports.
The breakthrough came in April 2025, when officers pulled over a swerving van on a highway near Baerum, west of the capital. Inside, they found tens of thousands of U.S. silver coins. A second van that arrived shortly afterward was carrying tens of thousands more.
On Thursday, Norway's economic crime unit Okokrim announced that three Norwegian nationals — two men and a woman — had been sentenced to prison on charges of aggravated money laundering. The sentences ran up to two and a half years. Two British nationals facing related charges were acquitted. Both sides retain the right to appeal, and the verdict is not yet final.
Prosecutors alleged that the coins represented proceeds from a "major investment scheme" in the United States that had been converted into millions of dollars worth of silver. The three Norwegians were convicted in connection with organising the scheme and storing the coins.
"It is gratifying that the silver has been recovered and that a verdict has now been handed down, enabling the victims of the fraud in the U.S.A. to have the misappropriated assets returned to them," Public Prosecutor Jon André Hvoslef-Eide said in a statement. Speaking to The Associated Press, Hvoslef-Eide noted that assets could only be returned to victims once the judicial process had been completed. He did not identify the victims.
The 2025 discovery was not the first. An earlier cache of 79,500 American Eagle coins had already been found in Norway in 2019. Investigators were still searching for additional missing coins at the request of American authorities when the van tip led them to the second haul.
American Eagle coins are produced by the U.S. Mint for collectors in gold, silver and palladium, each carrying a different face value. Because silver prices have risen sharply over the past year, the recovered coins are now worth considerably more than when they first disappeared.
Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)