It was nine months ago that his ex-wife Rikke abducted their son. Funen police tracked her down to Spain, but still had no chance of finding her.
That was when Mohammed Hansen contacted TV2 to ask for their help.
Journalists from TV2 Dokumentars took up the matter and traveled around Southern Europe to try to find the mother and the boy.
Internet help
While police were investigating, Hansen tried to find a trace of his ex-wife online. He came across a Facebook page called player.dk, which Rikke’s new girlfriend clicked on and liked. This website allows women to sell intimate pictures and videos.
One of the profiles on the page was ‘Soline’. She never showed her face, but Hansen recognized the tattoos. He was sure it was Rikke.
TV2 journalist Anders Lomholt then set up a profile on player.dk under the name Ulrik Andersen to find out if it could help them find her.
The pictures suggested that she was in Southern Europe and that it might be Spain. After traveling there and searching for more clues, Lomholt and his colleague Yans Felippe Geckler asked for help from the internet community.
The strength of OSINT
The members of the OSINT network take pride in their ability to quickly obtain information from open source intelligence, and they often challenge each other to see who is the fastest.
One of the journalists’ contacts gave OSINT users a few pictures, including one of a mountain and another of Serbo-Croatian writing, and within a few days the pair of pictures had given some useful answers.
Everything pointed to Croatia, so this was where the journalists agreed to meet Hansen, who was finally building hope of seeing his son again.
Betrayed by her shopping bags
In one of the first pictures Lomholt bought on player.dk, he had identified a stool from some H&M changing cabins and a New York bag. Then he asked Rikke alias Soline for a video of a place where she could be seen.
She posted a video of what appears to be a mall, and of walking into a locker room at H&M. A shopping mall in Dubrovnik matched all the properties.
Meanwhile, the mountain scene led them to the town of Lovorno. When they arrived there, luck was on their side. A Danish family lived there, and a car with a Danish number plate stood in front of the house.
Hansen contacted the police in Dubrovnik, who then arrested his ex-wife in the mall.
Four months later
Rikke received a sentence of another eight months for abducting her son as well as some imprisonment for offenses involving false surrogacy.
Hansen has been reunited with his son and they go to family counseling every week. The boy has resumed school. Once a week he talks to his mother on the phone and he has visited her in prison.
The child started school again. He talks to his mother on the phone once a week and has visited her in prison.
The TV2 documentary, which depicts the investigation, ‘The fake foster mother on the run’ (‘The fake surrogate mother on the run’)is on TV2 tonight at 20.40, after which it will be available on TV2 Play.