Skien - Files: From Trafficking to Deception in Norway
Zainab abdulkarim ali-Oslo, salah al saadi- Fredrikstad,Fredrikstad politiet station,politi-skien, Politi Telemark,oslo politidistrikt
09.09.2023 - Norway
The map illustrates how traffickers and their intermediaries tracked their victims across multiple Norwegian cities: 2009 - 2022
According to a 19th-century legend, “Once Upon a Time,” the Truth and the Lie met one day. The Lie said to the Truth: "It's a marvelous day today!" The Truth looked up to the skies and sighed, for the day was indeed beautiful. They spent a lot of time together, ultimately arriving beside a well. The Lie told the Truth: "The water is very nice; let's take a bath together!" The Truth, once again suspicious, tested the water and discovered that it was indeed very nice. They undressed and started bathing. Suddenly, the Lie came out of the water, put on the clothes of the Truth, and ran away. The furious Truth came out of the well and ran everywhere to find the Lie and to get her clothes back. The World, seeing the Truth naked, turned its gaze away in contempt and rage.The poor Truth returned to the well and disappeared forever, hiding therein in its shame. Since then, the Lie travels around the world, dressed as the Truth, satisfying the needs of society, because the World, in any case, harbors no wish at all to meet the naked Truth.
The world-famous painting "The Truth Coming Out of the Well" by artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1896, is exhibited at the Anne de Beaujeu Museum in Moulins, Allier. This painting embodies the famous legend that represents the struggle between truth and lies, depicting Truth as she emerges naked from the well after Lie has stolen her clothes. This image embodies the artist's philosophy of how society perceives truth, where the naked truth is often rejected, while the Lie wanders around disguised in her clothes.
With that painful allegory begins the real story of one of the most remarkable acts of deception in modern Europe the story of “the curator” who became a “political refugee” in Norway after once coordinating an organized network of smuggling artists and migrants across Europe under the pretense of humanitarian and cultural projects.
After arranging the smuggling of dozens of migrants to countries such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway, the curator eventually decided to smuggle herself using the same route and the same accomplice the man who had previously helped move her “artists.” Together they traveled by car from Rome to Norway, a three-day journey across Europe. She arrived in Norway in the autumn of 2008, having ensured that everyone she had coordinated for had already been safely transported including the guard who once stood watch over the detained artists in the Italian city of Crotone.
What made this journey remarkable was not only the audacity of the act but the astonishing ability to deceive.
The curator managed to fool the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) with her performance skills, pretending to suffer from selective mutism and trauma, complete with tears and dramatic storytelling. She claimed to be a famous Iraqi artist whose life was in danger due to “political persecution,” and as a result, she was officially granted political asylum in Norway.
Her story did not end there. She went on to manipulate Norway’s deep sense of humanitarian compassion, launching a campaign of calculated lies and staged victimhood. Using fabricated illnesses and emotional appeals, she gained social benefits, legal protection, and sympathetic media coverage.
Local newspapers notably Varden.no became the first to fall for her deception. The paper published a series of stories glorifying her as a “persecuted artist who escaped violence and death,” crafting a perfect tale of refugee suffering and courage. The truth, however, was far different.
According to later findings, the interview published by Varden in 2013, later removed from their website was full of false information about her background, origin, and reasons for asylum.
While she claimed to have fled death threats after working in Iraq’s Ministry of Culture, she was in fact part of a smuggling network that disguised its operations as “humanitarian art exhibitions” managed from abroad. The so-called “ Charity Exhibitions” she cited was merely a cover; the actual coordination took place in Crotone, Italy.
In that interview, the curator told a dramatic tale of an attempted assassination, a missing driver, and mysterious phone threats, all designed to build her legend as the “heroic refugee.” Her story became a powerful media tool and an emotional narrative, concealing a complex web of legal manipulation and exploitation of loopholes in Europe’s asylum systems.
Once granted permanent residence and political asylum in Norway, she used her image as a “refugee artist” to establish influential connections in the art community, benefiting from public sympathy and support from local municipalities and cultural institutions that never verified her true past.
Over time, however, contradictions began to emerge among her various stories, especially after witnesses and documents surfaced revealing how artists and migrants were moved from Italy to northern Europe through so-called “cultural projects.”
After some of these details appeared in limited reports in 2024, the same newspaper that had once promoted her story quietly deleted the original article, following a direct request from the curator herself, likely to avoid renewed scrutiny and comparison between her old claims and the new evidence.
Today, the case resurfaces not merely as a tale of human deceit but as a deeper question about how far humanitarian institutions and the media are willing to go without verifying the stories told under the banner of “suffering” and “humanity” stories that may, in fact, be just another disguise worn by Lie as she continues to walk among us dressed as Truth.
She presented herself to the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration in 2008, and later to the Norwegian media, as a famous Iraqi artist fleeing the horrors of assassinations, rape, and death threats. She claimed to have arrived in Norway directly from Iraq, ignoring the fact that she had actually traveled illegally through Italy and France. She also asserted that she held a high position in the Iraqi Ministry of Culture and that armed gangs disguised as police were pursuing her in Baghdad. To journalists, she gave a dramatic account of unimaginable suffering, claiming she lost her ability to speak for several days due to shock after an assassination attempt.
But what later emerged was shocking. Evidence revealed that a large part of her story was built on carefully crafted lies and that she was, in fact, the main coordinator of human trafficking operations. She managed a complex network that carried out smuggling activities in an ingenious way under the cover of a fake charitable art project, using humanitarian and cultural slogans to conceal her operations. These activities were conducted through France and Italy before she herself arrived illegally in Norway.
Subsequent investigations uncovered major inconsistencies in her statements about the alleged gangs, mysterious contacts, and fabricated assassination attempts that she used to justify her asylum request. Her stories were described as a masterful example of psychological and emotional manipulation designed to elicit sympathy and gain legal and media protection.
In 2024, the Norwegian newspaper Varden deleted the original interview it had published with her in 2013 after discovering that most of its details were fabricated, and that the article had unintentionally contributed to misleading public opinion and glorifying one of the most prominent cases of media deception in the Norwegian cultural scene.
The original article published by the Norwegian newspaper Varden.no was removed in 2024, after subsequent investigations uncovered substantial evidence contradicting the claims made in the original interview. The evidence indicated coordinated smuggling operations in 2008, conducted under the guise of a fake art project, which facilitated the illegal entry of individuals into Schengen countries. The newspaper decided to delete the article following these findings.
The map illustrates how traffickers and their intermediaries tracked their victims across several Norwegian cities over a period of years.
Salah moved from Tysvær–Haugesund to Fredrikstad after learning that the victims had settled there in 2009, while Zeinab moved from Skien to Oslo after the victims relocated from Fredrikstad to Oslo in 2014, fleeing the trafficker who had transported them from Rome to Gardermoen Airport. Zeinab did not locate the victim until 2022.
The connected arrows on the map indicate a systematic long term tracking pattern, reflecting a carefully organized network linking the victims’ residences and movements over time.
