Investigation into the very mysterious disappearance of a Dutch hacker
Last August, Arjen Kamphuis literally disappeared from the radar. This computer expert was supposed to spend a holiday on his own in Norway. Since then his friends, the police have been looking for him, without success.
Le Monde [ paywall ] is dedicating an incredible investigation to him. Behind the investigation, the portrait of an atypical character emerges.
Behind his thin glasses, Arjen Kamphuis' fine eyes smile gently. Her long blond hair pulled backwards. And his giant stature. Above the picture, in red letters, this word: MISSING
Arjen Kamphuis mysteriously disappeared on August 20. He was last seen in Bodø , a modern port at the entrance to a Norwegian fjord. His best friend: Ancilla, as she presents herself on Twitter, posted the notice on August 31. Friends, colleagues, family are very, very worried:
Arjen Kamphuis is a great hiking enthusiast, he had gone on holiday to Spitsbergen and had brought a kayak, although he had never used one before.
In the days that followed, the press picked up on the disappearance of Arjen Kamphuis. He is presented as an associate of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks. Quickly, on the net, the conspiracy machine gets carried away: if someone close to Assange has vanished, he must necessarily have been kidnapped by the American secret services.
Is the hypothesis credible? Not according to his relatives. In its investigation, Le Monde went to meet Arjen Kamphuis' friends. His best friend Ancilla: Linde Van Leest of her real name (32 years old). Former playmate, especially for fetishist magazines, converted to politics. She was the head of the list for the Pirate Party in the last Dutch elections. A friend of his: Jos Weijers, Quadra computer scientist by day, hacker by night. His colleagues: two former NSA employees, partners of the start-up they co-founded.
All of them affirm that Arjen Kamphuis is not a close associate of Julian Assange. Even if he's actually met him before. His secret activity (since he does have one) is to help and train journalists who need it to secure their data. Especially in war zones. He regularly goes on a secret mission. "Where bullets meet bits," he writes on his Twitter account.
What happened on August 20? From the testimonies of friends and the investigation, several points emerged. Arjen Kamphuis never went to Spitsbergen. He spent 10 days in two hotels in Bodø, 1200 km from there, on the mainland. He had bought a plane ticket to return to Amsterdam on August 22nd from Trondheim... 700 km down South. A flight he never took.
On August 20, Arjen Kamphuis left his hotel and took the train to the bottom of the fjord in Rognan, 85 km away. His phone pinged in the area and the train controller remembers his luggage that was blocking the corridor.
On September 11, (not far from there) a fisherman finds a bag containing the missing person's passport, credit card and money.
The same day, the famous kayak was discovered on land on one side of the fjord. The luggage, however, cannot be found.
The fjords and surrounding mountains have been checked by the Norwegian police. His friends note that the kayak was found near the town of Fauske, "facing a very special mountainous peninsula, since it houses a Norwegian station for intercepting satellite signals and detecting electronic signatures from planes and ships. This station, which belongs to the Norwegian intelligence services and may work for NATO, is not clandestine - the three white domes containing the interception devices are visible from afar - but discretion reigns over the exact nature of its activities," Le Monde wrote.
"On the same bank of the fjord, in Reitan, between Bodø and Fauske, there is another strategic installation, hidden in an underground gallery: the Norwegian Armed Forces Joint Headquarters, which includes a cyber defence centre." (*)
For Arjen Kamphuis' friends, the man cannot have been there simply to hike. These installations encapsulate everything he is passionate about.
On September 20, the searches were abandoned but a new lead appeared later on.
On August 30, ten days after his disappearance, Arjen Kamphuis' phone connected to three relays in southern Norway, 1,600 kilometres from Bodo.
The phone was "circulating" at high speed. Maybe he was on a train. Once switched on, the device loaded the SMS messages and waiting messages. Then, after 20 minutes, a German SIM card was inserted, this model can contain two cards.
And then Arjen Kamphuis' phone disappeared again.
BBM
* There is a place called Reitan 800 kms south of Bodø, and even south of Trondheim. I cannot find a place called Reitan between Bodø and Fauske.
This article of RTBF is a summary of the report in Le Monde that is behind a paywall.
I like the snippet about Arjen's luggage blocking the corridor in the train. That must have been a lot of luggage. Where did it go? and did it all fit in the kayak?