The National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime () is

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

's central unit for fighting

economic An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

and

environmental crime Environmental crime is an illegal act which directly harms the environment. These illegal activities involve the environment, wildlife, biodiversity, and natural resources. International bodies such as, G7, Interpol, European Union, United Na ...

s. The unit, created in 1989, has its main office in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

. Økokrim is both a police unit and a

prosecution A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in Civil law (legal system), civil law. The prosecution is the ...

authority. The current director is Pål Lønseth. The unit is organized in multidisciplinary teams headed by public prosecutors. Each team has a specific field of expertise, such as

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

computer crime Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of criminal activities that are carried out using digital devices and/or networks. It has been variously defined as "a crime committed on a computer network, especially the Internet"; Cybercriminals may exp ...

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

Cases

The organization has played an important role in some major legal cases. In 2003, Økokrim arrested Mullah Krekar, alleged leader of the

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

Islamist group, Ansar al-Islam.

2002

After Jon Lech Johansen released

DeCSS DeCSS is one of the first free computer programs capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS, free and open source operating systems (such as BSD and Linux) could not play encrypted video ...

, he was taken to court by Økokrim. The trial opened in the

Oslo District Court Oslo District Court () is a district court located in Oslo, Norway. This court is based at the Oslo Courthouse in the city of Oslo. The court serves the entire city of Oslo and the court is subordinate to the Borgarting Court of Appeal. As the ...

on 9 December 2002 with Johansen pleading not guilty and the defense, by

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

argued that no illegal access was obtained to anyone else's information, since Johansen owned the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

s himself. They also argued that it is legal under Norwegian law to make copies of such data for personal use. The verdict was announced on 7 January 2003, acquitting Johansen of all charges.

2003

Økokrim filed an appeal on 20 January 2003 to the Johansen verdict and on 28 February that the

Borgarting Court of Appeal The Borgarting Court of Appeal () is one of six intermediate courts of appeal in the Kingdom of Norway. The Court is located in the city of Oslo. The court has jurisdiction over the counties of Oslo, Buskerud, and parts of Akershus and Østfold. ...

had agreed to hear the case. Johansen's second DeCSS trial began on 2 December 2003, and resulted in an acquittal on 22 December 2003. Økokrim did make a further appeal of the case to the Supreme Court.

2006

In 2006, Økokrim filed indictments were filed against four members of The 5 Percent Community for breach of trust with fraudulent intent. The main individuals responsible, including Henrik Ellefsen and Jørn Ronnie Tagge, were convicted on charges of fraud in December 2007.

2011

In 2011 the agency investigated 28 cases. 28 persons were convicted, and the conviction rate was 86%.

2012

The agency's desired conviction rate is 90%.

2016

On 8 March 2016, Økokrim seized the Popcorn-Time.no domain name. Norwegian Police Seize Popcorn-Time “Information” Site
TorrentFreak Retrieved March 8, 2016 The site did not host the

Popcorn Time Popcorn Time is a multi-platform, free software BitTorrent client that includes an integrated media player. The application provides a piracy-based alternative to subscription-based video streaming services such as Netflix. Popcorn Time u ...

application but instead had articles and links to sites that offered the application.

References

External links

English website of the ØKOKRIM unitEFF Topics: Free Jon Johansen! - Norway v. Johansen Case
{{authority control Law enforcement in Norway Government agencies of Norway