The drug case started on Monday in Hordaland district court, where it will last for five weeks.
While three of the defendants pleaded not guilty, the other two admitted partial guilt in some of the indictments, writes NRK.
One of them is a man in his 60s. The Bergen newspaper writes about how in 2022 the police found several kilograms of hashish in a number of barrels that were hidden under stones and soil on the man’s farm.
The man himself says he is just a farmer who deals with wild sheep and selling vegetables.
According to the prosecution, the five men must have had roles in a network, with ties to abroad, which supplied Western Norway with hashish between 2020 and 2022.
The case was opened after the police received decrypted messages in the SkyEEC communication network. This platform was shut down after an international police operation in 2021.
One of the five is accused of having smuggled in well over 500 kilos of hashish, while two others are said to have been involved with this lot. According to the indictment, a Lithuanian man is said to have smuggled more than 200 kilos with a sports plane from Denmark to Tønsberg.
All five who have been charged in the case risk at least three years in prison, Bergens Tidende wrote this summer.
– This is one of the biggest hashish cases we have had in Western Norway, said State Attorney Kristine Herrebrøden Bergens Tidende Sunday.
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