Ole Christian Bach (31 May 1957 – 11 July 2005) was a
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
con artist
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have ...
.
Bach came into the spotlight in 1987 after organizing an illegal
pyramid scheme where many investors and banks lost a total of 40 million NOK. Bach fled and was arrested in London and extradited to Norway. In 1988, he was convicted on charges of fraud and sentenced to four years in
prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...
.
He was convicted again for his involvement with the theft and sale of
Edvard Munch's ''
Madonna'' in 1992,
and sentenced to seven months in prison.
Bach managed to establish new connections, most importantly with Gerard Cok. Cok controlled the German porn enterprise
Beate Uhse
Beate Uhse-Rotermund (; born Beate Köstlin , 25 October 1919 – 16 July 2001) was a German pilot, entrepreneur and sex pioneer. She was one of the very few female stunt pilots in Germany in the 1930s. During World War II she ferried planes fo ...
, and he trusted Bach with the establishment of porn shops in Norway and Sweden. With security in an estate out of Oslo, Cok also gave Bach a NOK 60.000.000 loan. The security later turned out to be only in the estate's boat house.
[Pornomilliardæren saksøker Bachs advokat]
Haugen in Hegnar.no 1.10.2007
In 2005 he was again charged with economic
fraud. On 11 July 2005, he committed
suicide in
Sweden after a car chase with Swedish undercover police.
Aftermath
After Bach's death, Gerhard Cok sued Ole Christian Bach's lawyer Ronny Mulstad for his role in securing Cok's loan to Bach.
The dispute was settled outside court. The role of the journalists who covered the Bach's hiding came under investigation after Bach's death. One journalist was fined for having helped Bach to avoid arrest by paying him for interviews. A magazine was fined for similar reasons. A friend of Bach's was sentenced to prison for helping Bach to avoid arrest.
["Dømt til fengsel for å ha bistått med å skjule Bach mens han var på flukt fra politiet]
Økokrims nyhetsarkiv 9.10.2006
References
1957 births
2005 deaths
20th-century Norwegian criminals
21st-century Norwegian criminals
20th-century Norwegian businesspeople
Norwegian male criminals
Suicides by firearm in Sweden
Norwegian prisoners and detainees
Norwegian fraudsters
Prisoners and detainees of Norway
{{crime-bio-stub