Denmark's 10 Most Shocking Criminal Cases
From submarine murder to state prison escapes — the cases that have defined Danish criminal history
This is a curated selection of the ten criminal cases that the truecrime.news editorial team considers the most shocking to have emerged from Denmark — chosen for their severity, their cultural impact, and the way each exposed a hidden fault line in Danish society.
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1. Peter Madsen Killed Journalist Kim Wall on Submarine in 2017
In August 2017, Swedish journalist Kim Wall boarded inventor Peter Madsen's homemade submarine UC3 Nautilus in Copenhagen Harbour for what was meant to be a short interview. She never returned. Madsen was convicted in 2018 of premeditated murder and the sexual mutilation of Wall's body, which was found dismembered in the waters around Copenhagen. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The case shocked the world and prompted an international conversation about the safety of female journalists.
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2. The 2015 Copenhagen Terror Attacks: Krudttønden and the Synagogue
On 14–15 February 2015, gunman Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein carried out two coordinated attacks in Copenhagen — first at the Krudttønden cultural centre during a free speech event, killing filmmaker Finn Nørgaard, then at the Great Synagogue, killing security guard Dan Uzan. The attacker was shot dead by police. The twin attacks, inspired by the Charlie Hebdo shootings weeks earlier, left Denmark shaken and sparked a nationwide debate about radicalisation, security, and free expression.
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3. The Amager Man: 23 Years of Terror Against Women in Copenhagen
Over more than two decades, a serial predator known as "The Amager Man" terrorised women in the Amager district of Copenhagen. He was responsible for rape, sexual assault, and ultimately two murders. The case, spanning from the 1970s into the 1990s, represents one of the longest and most disturbing series of violent crimes against women in Danish history. The perpetrator's identity and the full scope of his crimes were only established after years of investigation, making it a landmark case for Danish forensic policing.
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4. The Brønderslev Case — Decade of Child Abuse in North Jutland
The Brønderslev case exposed systematic and severe sexual and physical abuse of children over more than a decade in North Jutland, Denmark. The case involved multiple victims and perpetrators and resulted in landmark convictions. It brought institutional failures to light and prompted significant reforms in Denmark's child protection system. The sheer duration and scale of the abuse — and the failure of authorities to intervene sooner — made it one of the most disturbing criminal scandals in modern Danish history.
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5. The Claus Malmqvist Case — Denmark's Largest Drug Trafficking
The Claus Malmqvist case stands as Denmark's largest drug trafficking prosecution. Malmqvist was convicted of orchestrating the import of enormous quantities of narcotics into Denmark, running a sophisticated criminal network that operated across borders. The case exposed the scale of organised drug crime in Scandinavia and the reach of Danish criminal networks into the European drug trade. The conviction sent shockwaves through Danish law enforcement and the public alike.
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6. Stein Bagger Defrauded Banks of 831 Million Kroner
In 2008, IT entrepreneur Stein Bagger was exposed as the architect of Denmark's largest corporate fraud. As CEO of IT Factory, he fabricated leasing contracts and deceived Danish and international banks out of approximately 831 million kroner. When the scheme unravelled, Bagger fled the country but eventually turned himself in. He was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. The case became a defining moment in Danish financial crime history and raised serious questions about corporate oversight.
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7. The Simon Spies Case — Sexual Exploitation Scandal
Simon Spies, the flamboyant founder of one of Denmark's most successful travel agencies, became a household name for reasons far beyond tourism. His lifestyle — marked by the alleged sexual exploitation of young women — generated a major scandal in Denmark. The case raised profound questions about the abuse of wealth and power, the vulnerability of young women, and the limits of what Danish society was willing to tolerate from its celebrity entrepreneurs. It remains one of the most controversial cases in Danish public life.
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8. The Indian Adoption Project — Systematic Child Removal Scandal
Denmark's Indian Adoption Project scandal revealed that hundreds of children adopted from India to Denmark from the 1970s onward had been obtained through fraudulent means — with birth parents deceived or coerced into giving up their children. The case exposed systemic failures in the international adoption pipeline and implicated Danish authorities and adoption agencies. For the adoptees themselves, the revelations were devastating, raising questions about identity, justice, and accountability that remain unresolved.
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9. Lisa Borch Killed Her Mother With a Knife in Kvissel
In October 2014, 15-year-old Lisa Borch and her Iraqi boyfriend stabbed her mother, Karin Borch Larsen, to death at the family home in Kvissel, Jutland. The killing was carried out while her younger sisters slept nearby. Borch was convicted of murder in 2015 and sentenced to nine years in a youth institution. The case gripped Denmark because of the victim's age, the perpetrator's youth, and the cold-blooded nature of the attack — details that made it one of the most disturbing domestic crimes in recent Danish memory.
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10. Hells Angels Mastermind Acquitted of Attempted Murder on Appeal
The Brian Sandberg case illuminated the violent reach of organised biker crime in Denmark. Sandberg, linked to the Hells Angels, was initially convicted in connection with a serious violent crime, only to be acquitted on appeal — a verdict that provoked public outrage and deep scepticism about the justice system's ability to prosecute organised criminal networks. The case became emblematic of the long-running conflict between Danish law enforcement and outlaw motorcycle clubs, a struggle that has defined Danish crime for decades.
