His Own Empire: The Norwegian Waterworks Case

Abstract

Corruption in municipal administrations in Norway was hidden in the shadows for many years when ‘anti-state’ was a kind of political mainstream for many Norwegians, not least outside the capital. But over time it has become an open secret. One of the new corruption cases in recent years is the so-called ‘Waterworks case’ in Akershus fylke, which is the topic of this article, where the head of a large waterworks and a sanitation plant was the main actor. Even in terms of corruption, it is a spectacular case. Large sums were siphoned out of the employer's accounts over the years by systematic fraud and corrupt alliances. The waterworks director's crimes were not crimes of need. Investing in a 25,000-acre game farm in South Africa bears witness to the fact that he was not just out to feather his nest. From the history-of-crime view it is a mixture of the traditional and the modern.