It had been nine months since his ex-wife Rikke abducted their son. The Funen police tracked her trail to Spain but had no chance of locating her yet.
That is when Mohammed Hansen contacted TV2 to ask for their help.
Journalists from TV2 Dokumentars took up the case and travelled around southern Europe to try and find the mother and boy.
The help of the internet
While the police were investigating, Hansen was trying to find a trace of his ex-wife online. He stumbled upon a Facebook page called player.dk that Rikke’s new boyfriend clicked on and liked. This website allows women to sell intimate photos and videos.
One of the profiles on the page was ‘Soline’. She never showed her face, but Hansen recognised the tattoos. He was sure it was Rikke.
TV2 journalist Anders Lomholt then created a profile on player.dk under the name Ulrik Andersen to find out if it could help them to find her.
The pictures hinted she was in southern Europe and that it might be Spain. After travelling there and searching for more clues, Lomholt and his colleague Yan’s Felippe Geckler asked for the help of the internet community.
The power of OSINT
The members of the OSINT network take pride in their ability to quickly obtain information from open source intelligence, often challenging one another to see who is the fastest.
One of the journalists’ contacts gave the OSINT users a few photos, including one of a mountain and another of Serbo-Croatian writing, and within days the pair of pictures had yielded some useful answers.
Everything pointed to Croatia, so this is where the journalists arranged to meet Hansen who was finally building up hope of seeing his son again.
Betrayed by her shopping bags
In one of the first pictures Lomholt purchased on player.dk he had identified a stool from some H&M changing cabins and a New York bag. He then asked Rikke alias Soline for a video of a place where she could be spotted.
She sent a video of what seems to be a shopping mall and of entering a changing cabin at H&M. One shopping mall in Dubrovnik matched all the characteristics.
Meanwhile, the mountain picture led them to the town of Lovorno. When they arrived there, luck was on their side. A Danish family were living there and a car with a Danish numberplate was parked in front of the house.
Hansen contacted the police in Dubrovnik who then arrested his ex-wife at the shopping mall.
Four months later
Rikke received a sentence of eight more months for abducting her son as well as some jail time for offences involving false surrogacy.
Hansen has been reunited with his son and they go to family counselling every week. The boy has resumed school. Once a week he talks to his mother over the phone and he has visited her in prison.
The child started school again. He talks to his mom over the phone once a week and has visited her in prison.
The TV2 documentary depicting the investigation, ‘Den falske rugemor på flugt’ (‘The false surrogate mother on the run’), is on TV2 tonight at 20.40, after which it will be available on TV2 Play.
