Nearly 34 years...

After more than 33 years the Kambo Mannen is not identified.

What happened in this September days 1987, when a conductor found the human remains of the later so-called Kambo Mannen besides the former train line between Kambo and Moss?

Whom the unknown stranger met before he was deadly injured by a train?

Two of his limbs had been severed, an arm and a foot. He had not been drinking alcohol prior his death and was killed by the train. 

Who took his identification card, his papers, his passport?  And his funds?

It was not clear for the train operator who saw something at first he thought it was a plastic bag on the rails, to see a human remains in front of his traction engine. 

Today the train line it’s a pass for tracking and the trains are running through a tunnel which was built a few years ago. Long after the incidents with the Kambo Mannen. In all these years the mystery grew even bigger about the unknown alien. 

Some newer information were revealed after a recent newspaper article in 2017 by the Norwegian tv2 nyheter in Oslo. But nobody could reveal what the person wanted in this specific area close to a radar station in the Cold War against the former Soviet Union. He had no camera with him or other tools for espionage.  Maybe the Kambo Mannen was one of the spies of the military intelligence of the existing so-called Warsaw Treaty Organization. But this reason is unlikely.

The Warsaw Pact states sent plenty of secret scouts to the scene with foreign number plated cars in this specific area.

Yes, and there were many suicides in these days along train lines in Norway. But this is even more unreal with the Kambo Mannen. 

What seems today some sort of bizarre game- were in those days in the two systems a common method to find needed information. In 2017, it revealed that the police forbid foreign number plates in the area close to the Gylderåsen station in Våler of the NATO Nike system of the Norwegian army.

If he had been a spy, at least a vehicle would have been found nearby. Keys that would have pointed to the vehicle. The Norwegian police these days experienced in these particular cases would have checked the circumstance and surroundings. 

But it but this was not the only case of mystery and unidentified people in Norway in the last 50 years. It started with the most mystery case of the unknown stranger from the Isdal, who used multiple identities while she was in Norway, 1970.

Last traces led to former Tito Yugoslavia. 

The woman with the strange code was mystified and certainly the target of the military intelligence of the Norwegian government. They had all reason to look for her luggage which was discovered by police in the train station in Bergen a few days after her death.

Exotic Circumstances

They were around about 15 people in  Norway which could be identified and  three cases led to Germany and the former East German hemisphere. 

The last one to leave a strange mystery was the dead woman in the Plaza Hotel in Oslo in 1995. Jennifer Fergate.

But the Kambo Mannen came under different circumstances, which showed that he was searched before his death. 

Someone could, of course, claim that the unknown person somehow came to Norway like a stowaway, then decided to commit suicide at short notice next to the railway line and buried his belongings somewhere along the way. Anyone reading this already knows that it does not sound realistic. 

The trail of the later investigation to the German vessel- the MS Edelgard- was just a manoeuvre to mislead the real investigations which ended again on this railroad in autumn 1987. 

Well, there were large smuggling rings that brought goods into Norway and shipped them into the country at previously spotted points. Alcohol and art smuggling were big business there. This sounds more realistic. First part of Kambo Mannen

Kambo Mannen's traces

His cloth could have been from a German second hand delivery to East Germany- different finds and numbers could not be explained and files about how it was delivered and to whom it was delivered would be destroyed by now. Second hand shops in the FRG were not so common and so popular.

Plenty of files of the East German former state security are destroyed or brought to a place where the government cannot gain any information any more.  Funny enough files were found in a mine tunnel shortly after reunification. 

Other files are still shredded pieces of the former East German State security HVA. It will take years to put them together again in painstaking detail, like a puzzle.

The Kambo Mannen did not reveal where he received the packet of Camel filter cigarettes which were solely produced with this specific tobacco for the Eastern Block market. 

This leaves only the clothing, which has posed even more mysteries since the first day of the investigation than these exhibits have revealed.

The 55-60 year old man was wearing the following when he was found dead on the train line: 

We have explained long before the Norwegians in tv2 in our first article the connection to some clothes. We refer to the first part.

A grey blouse jacket / military jacket -so called "Schimanski jacket". An item of clothing made famous by the television series Schimanski, the Duisburg fictional(!) "Crime scene", which was very fashionable at the time and was worn by the actor Götz George in each of these episodes. 
One pair of blue jeans
A white shirt with dark, thin stripes
Two medical stockings with three blue stripes on top and open toe.
A yellow machine knitted jumper with a square pattern.
One white vest
One pair of Elan Body panties
A handkerchief with brown stripes in a square pattern.
A black belt made of artificial material.
A red Victorinox Swiss Army pocket knife of the model "Climber".
A soft pack of Camel cigarettes. Produced in the West for the Eastern European market.
 

Sources: Kripos  Norge

It was common practice at the time to ship clothes collected by aid organizations in West Germany to the East. That meant to Poland or the former GDR. It was also customary for the German Red Cross, for example, to provide clothing to late settlers arriving from the East. This also applied to special prisoner from East Germany from the former GDR, which are little known in the world. Also, not in Norway. 

These clothes were compulsorily catalogued.

Most of the labels were also cut out of them and, for example, plasters with numbers were affixed to shoes. This explains the discovery of the plaster in the shoe only now because at that time in the clothing depots one had to be able to match the shoes to each other in large quantity. 

Another aspect is the sole insert, which was only studied a few years ago. This indicates that the sole was subsequently adapted to the shoe because it does not belong to the shoe and this in turn explains the second-hand clothes thesis.

Did the man come with an order from the GDR via the main access camp Friedland?

Von Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F079036-0029 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Link

Are there any documents about the dead man still to be found here?

The former GDR smuggled its snitches to the West directly. In any case, the number is not a secret code, but comes from a clothing store. 

More to read in the second part in March 2021

Another murder

One does not want to believe the overall context.

But, there must be one of these connections that writes life or, as in the present cases, death. 

Parallels can be found with the cases of the Isdal woman and the dead, eight years later (1995), at the Plaza Hotel in Oslo.

It was not unusual that a body was found on September 22, 1987, along the railway line near Oslo, between Kambo and Moss. According to forensic examinations, the dead man had been run over by a train.

The clothing of the dead man was presumably from Germany. First, there were the obligatory thrombosis stockings, two socks for medical support with three blue stripes on top and an open toe at the toes.

Von Jörg Zägel - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Hertie, KaDeWe, fine-rib undershirt (Elan Body), the typical Schimanski jacket of the days 1987, when the Duisburg bully investigator was the rating king of the ARD.

At first, it seemed mysterious why the labels had also been cut out of his clothes. It was like the two deaths mentioned above. A packet of cigarettes from the former Eastern Bloc, an almost empty box of Camel, which was produced in the West for the East, was found with the body, as well as a Swiss army knife, a red Victorinox Swiss Army pocket knife of the model "Climber".

In this context, the cigarettes could have come from the stocks of the former GDR Intershop. Mephisto shoes from the traditional company from Sarrebourg in France, which pointed to quality and a genuine connection to the Federal Republic. On the label of the Elan undershirt, there was a "German" written 1.  an  trace of the Second-Hand shops was gradually discarded because all the clothes came from the former Federal Republic of Germany.

In the course of the investigations, espionage again played a role with the finger of suspicion to the former Eastern Bloc. Along the railway line, there was a tunnel that led to a NATO facility on Gylder Hill in Våler in the 1980s. A radar station located there was part of the so-called Nike system. It was a missile defence system that was supposed to protect Oslo from a missile attack from the former Soviet Union.

But also a ship of a shipping company from Rendsburg came into the focus of the investigations. Bizarre became the case when the captain couldn't remember the passenger who allegedly had sailed on his cargo ship. At that time, it was common for passengers to be transported on cargo ships.

The case was filed away in Norway in 1990 because no papers were found on the dead man. Once again, however, the mysterious murder, initially classified as suicide, leads to the GDR after a trail to Switzerland, where a mix-up occurred, and the so-called "truck trail" was eliminated. A witness, truck driver Roy Sandberg, had reported after years that the tarp of his truck was cut when the events took place.

< healthy>Who knows this man, who is about 50-60 years old, or can provide relevant information about the case described? Relevant information also, especially from the environment of the former Kunst und Antiquitäten GmbH, which was subordinated to the KoKo. This also includes freight forwarders and drivers of the former VEB Deutrans, who may have taken the contraband goods to Scandinavia. Has an employee from this environment disappeared during the period in question? Also in connection with Jauerfood, a cover company of GENEX and GDR foreign trade in Copenhagen?

Did the dead man come from Berlin?

News is welcome at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Another part about the Kambo Mannen

Spooky facts

On June 3, 1995, a Saturday, an emergency call was received by the police in Oslo at about 7.58 pm.

What initially looked like a routine operation turned out to be one of the most mysterious criminal cases in Scandinavia over the following years. The operation took the officers to the then noble hotel "Oslo Plaza" at the main station of the Norwegian capital.

A security guard claimed to have heard a shot from room 2805, on the 28th floor. Two people were allegedly in the room at the time.

 The circumstance was  important for later investigations. 

Someone other than the dead person found in the room on the night of arrival, probably used one of the room key cards. 

This happened at about 12:20 pm on the day of arrival. Two days before the events described here. After that, the woman who checked in under the name Jennifer Fergate was only seen twice. Once she gave a princely tip to room service, otherwise the "Do not disturb" sign was hanging on the door. However, the unknown woman must have left the room and also the hotel. When this happened, the records in the Plaza gave no answer.

Jennifer Fergate, Kriminal Politi Sentralen, Oslo, Norge

The room door had been secured from the inside. The plastic key cards were lying in the room.
On the bed, as described in the article "The mysterious death in Oslo Plaza", lay the body of "Jennifer Fergate". A young cultured person, as described by witnesses. The woman was lying on the bed to her left and staring up. A single bullet hole in her forehead. The room was dark. It was quickly established that she had registered under a false name, with a non-existent Belgian address, together with a companion, Lois Fairgate (Fergate). Only Lois Fairgate was missing, he had been seen once, checking in. He was described at about 1.85 m and at that time between 35-40 years.
The purpose of the visit of the stranger, who was in the room and who had been reminded several times to come to the reception, was not clear. She had failed to pay the bill (about 300 euro). The unknown woman had exceeded the credit limit. She had booked the room by telephone for the first time on May  22, 1995, and had rescheduled it for another date on  May 31, 1995. Flight list evaluations from these days gave no information about the unknown person.

Traces pointing towards terrorism in which the unknown person could have been involved were quickly discarded. A possible environmental action was also ruled out because of the then known Brent Spar, which was to be sunk off Norway by the oil company Shell.
During these years, the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, from which Oslo I and Oslo II emerged, also took place under Norwegian mediation. It is hard to imagine that someone with such a weighty mission could, under these circumstances, stay in an Oslo hotel, have a meagre last meal and then be shot. By whomever.

A meagre last meal, Kriminal Politi Sentralen, Oslo, Norge

The only thing that remained was the intelligence gathering of information about the Bosnian war. Whole families had saved themselves to Norway. It was the first great wave of escape that had started during the siege of Sarajevo.
Only with what purpose, then, had she  travelled to Oslo on untraceable paths and in mysterious legend? The legend was so shaky that it could have been noticed at any time.
There were numerous other theories, but in this case, they could only be understood as working theories. The police in Oslo simply had too few starting points before the dead woman was buried in 1996.
 

Was the Plaza woman a drug courier? There was nothing to suggest that she was. Not even the luggage. According to her profile, the unknown woman was not a drug dealer who had brought goods to Scandinavia.
Was she a professional assassin or a contract killer? The whole situation would be grotesque, according to the later analysis from 2017, she was born around 1971.
Prostitution in the field of an internationally operating high-class play mate was also ruled out because the woman did not even have cosmetics. The handbag that she had with her when checking in was missing at the site inspection. Even her trousers or skirt were missing.

At that time, the death of the young stranger quickly became the archive of the "Isdal woman" and Kambomans added. What the investigators didn't intend to regard the death of Jane Doe from Plaza Hotel  suicide. Too much spoke against it, like removing all labels from the clothes, shoes, and any personal belongings, such as papers, wallet, make-up, from the possessions of the dead. However, the dead woman would have been wearing make-up, the newspapers reported at the time.
Also, the woman, in whose right hand a Belgian 9 mm Browning from Herstal was found, was missing any traces of blood and gunpowder, which would have been typical for such a situation if the woman had judged herself. The weapon was probably made in 1990 or 1991. The gun was fired once for test firing, probably by soundproofing it with a cushion, and then again when the fatal shot was fired.

Right hand, Jennifer Fergate, Kriminal Politi Sentralen, Oslo, Norge

Test shot, Jennifer Fergate, Kriminal Politi Sentralen, Oslo, Norge

How did she come into possession of the pistol and how did this pistol come with her to Norway?
It is also unclear whether the fingerprints of the dead were put into context in Germany.
It was interesting that the gun had been treated with caustic liquid to literally destroy the recognizability of the series.
Since World War II, there are only about 15 corpses that could not be identified in Norway. And only three of the cases seem somehow fatally connected.
The door was locked from the inside, and the key cards were in the room. Investigators only found clothes without labels, all name tags and tags on her clothes were removed, a men's perfume, (Ungaro Pour L'Homme 1 cologne) a travel bag and a briefcase with 32 shots of ammunition.
The woman, born around 1971, wore a Citizen Aqualand (model: CQ-1021-50, serial number: C022-088093 Y, 2010779, GN-4-S). This watch was made in January 1992 and required batteries of type 370 from the Swiss battery manufacturer Renata.

Diving watch Citizen Aqualand, Jennifer Fergate, Kriminal Politi Sentralen, Oslo, Norge
Punches on all batteries indicated that the batteries had been produced in December 1994. Renata explained that the batteries were delivered to shops between December 1994 and January 1995. The punch marks of the watchmaker were W395 (W/change/3/March/95/1995)

Batteries of Renata, stamps, Jennifer Fergate, Kriminal Politi Sentralen, Oslo, Norge

The batteries were probably sold in March 1995 at Hertie Hamburg, Barmbek. At that time it was common practice in this former department store, the "Klotz von Barmbek", to attach such a punch with a nail. It was certainly not the only watchmaker's shop that handled it in this way. However, it is a starting point.

In this context it is interesting whether the dead woman belonged to water sports or diving club.
A jacket of the German fashion brand René Lezard caught the investigators' eye. The Schwarzacher manufacturer René Lezard had just made the jackets more expensive in 1995, it is still not clear where and when this jacket was bought.
In the room the police also found a green-turquoise canvas bag of the German brand Travelite, which produced suitcases and travel accessories in Germany since 1949. Whether this bag was purchased from Hertie - especially for the trip to the Plaza in Oslo - cannot be clarified any more, but in 1995 suitcases and bags of this kind were sold in the Hamburg department store.

The black leather bag of the German brand Braun Büffel from Kirn testifies to the fact that the dead did not exactly vegetate impoverished during her lifetime. The briefcase was part of a collection produced in 1986-91. The gold ring, which the investigators could secure on the right middle finger of the dead woman, had been made in Germany. The quality of the ring (333/8k) was more likely to indicate that the ring had been purchased in a shopping centre, in a chain store at the time, than at a brand jeweller.

Who can remember the gold ring on the right hand of the unknown dead? Who sold this type of ring in the mid-1990s?

The small gold earring worn by the deceased could not be identified.
The unknown deceased must have lived in orderly circumstances. The work on her teeth had been done with porcelain and gold. This work of a dentist could also have been done in Switzerland, Belgium or the USA. She weighed about 67 kg and was 1.59 m tall, had blue eyes and dark hair, perhaps these were dyed.
Years later, after an enamel analysis, the trail led back to Germany.
"For us, the region around Berlin is interesting. Maybe the woman was born in the former GDR", one of the investigators told the Norwegian Gazette vg Nyheter in 2017, who examined the case again in detail. After 22 years the exhumation was ordered.

A dentist who has performed her numerous dental treatments?
Who can provide information about the clothes of the mysterious Jennifer Fergate? The bras could have been bought from C&A (Brenningmeyer) in 1994.

Jennifer Fergate, Kriminal Politi Sentralen, Oslo, Norge

Jennifer Fergate, Kriminal Politi Sentralen, Oslo, Norge
After further research, a completely different picture emerges.

The traces so far indicate whether the young age is after all the Kunst und Antiquitäten GmbH (KuA) Französische Str. 15; Berlin- the KuA GmbH of the HVA's main department I, embedded in the former empire of the commercial coordination of Dr. Alexander Schalck Golodkowski.

A trade in used goods of the special socialist kind. An almost unexplored exhibit of German history, allegedly closed down in 1990. But behind the scenes, there was more going on than those responsible could have been happy with. ZERV was almost helplessly at the mercy of the agile embargo criminals from East Berlin.

The privatization, respectively reorganization, of the state-owned enterprise ZERV was art trade from 1990 onwards. Research was carried out accordingly, but many of the looted goods no longer turned up. Many warehouses were still well stocked after reunification. Works of art and antiques were privately distributed by the remaining members of the KoKo.
At KuA GmbH, the antiques and works of art stolen by the Stasi in the early 1960s, which had been widely circulated in the GDR since Operation Light, were distributed to non-socialist countries. In the process, stolen paintings and coin and stamp collections were sold via western contacts of KuA GmbH with the knowledge of the then Minister Mielke if state security raids.
Many traces of Stasi stolen goods led to Scandinavia, including this case:
One of the examples is the Sophien treasure. On 20 September 1977, the "Sophienschatz", 58 golden grave goods worth approx. 3.0 million euros disappeared from a tank display case of the Dresden City Museum.
In 1999 38 pieces of the collection appeared in Oslo: In 1999 a coin dealer tried to sell 38 to auction off parts of the Sophien Treasure in Oslo. Parts of the loot turned up in England. The Oslo 
Coin dealer Gunnar Thesen had acquired the pieces in good faith from the Copenhagen-based dealer Arne Jacob Becker (†1983) from KuA GmbH. He acted for the KoKo in non-socialist foreign countries to raise urgently needed foreign currency.

Who can provide relevant information in this respect?
Did anyone with the appearance of Jennifer Fergate in 1995 work for a group of art connoisseurs who wanted to recover items stolen from the KoKo?
Does anyone know the woman from the art trade or real estate industry as a secretary?
You can write to us at any time, we would forward the news to the police in Oslo:
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