entertaining conversationalist. He’s also one of Finland’s most skilled open-sea yachtsmen. A picture emerges of a manic-depressive, even schizophrenic man.
His first wife, Anna-Leena, bore him five children, three girls and two boys. He divorced her suddenly and without apparent provocation after thirty-six years of marriage. Three weeks later, he married Tuula Jaatinen, age twenty-six. Tuula was made director of the Saukko art foundation and began embezzling right away. Over the course of two years, she absconded with, at best estimation, 10.2 million euros. She was tried and convicted for embezzlement, but disappeared rather than serve her three-year prison sentence.
Currently, Tuula lives in Switzerland. Finnish authorities requested that the Swiss return her to Finland, but the Swiss prevented the extradition. She’s wanted by Interpol, as requested by Finnish officials. Her location in Switzerland is known to Finnish police and press. Interestingly, she’s still married to Veikko Saukko, even though, aside from the embezzlement described above, she’s rumored to have been the lover of Veikko’s son, Antti—also married with children—throughout the course of her marriage to Veikko.
Veikko’s first wife, Anna-Leena, is in deep legal difficulties herself. As former director of the foundation, she was accused, via multiple lawsuits, of misappropriation of funds. In 2007, she declared bankruptcy, after being court-ordered to return 17.5 million euros to the foundation.
The five Saukko children all live at home, with the exceptions of Kaarina, deceased, and Antti, missing for nearly a year, in the mansion that stands two hundred meters behind the museum. Veikko insists that he stays surrounded by his children, whether single or married, and that they reside in the mansion. He enforces this through financial blackmail. His children are:
SON JANNE—member of corporation’s board of directors. Age thirty-seven.
SON ANTTI—member of corporation’s board of directors, but a less-than-serious person. He prefers yachting, snowboarding and surfing to working. Married. Father of four. Age thirty-nine.
DAUGHTER KAARINA—party girl. A Finnish Paris Hilton. She would have been age thirty-two.
DAUGHTER JOHANNA—married and mother of two. Lutheran priest. Age forty-two.
DAUGHTER PAULIINA—the troubled child. Engaged in prostitution as a minor, presumably to antagonize her father and defy him to publish her antics in
His children despise their father and have made no effort, not even in the media, to pretend otherwise. Some of them believe he has a narcissistic personality disorder, and a total inability to feel empathy. They complain that he subjects them to late-night drunken monologues, and pits them against one another by constantly changing the provisions of their inheritances.
Veikko, for many years, put off choosing which of his children would take over the family business. Finally, apparently no believer in primogeniture and for reasons incomprehensible, Veikko chose Antti, the prodigal son, and transferred all power in the family company to him without informing his other children. This despite that Antti had for years called his father an asshole, a human monster, the worst sort of pig, and probably fucked his wife on a regular basis.
The children had formerly felt a solidarity. When Antti was chosen, that solidarity disappeared, and they began slagging one another in the media. Janne was sacked from his position on the board of directors. Each of the other children had held honorary positions in the corporation, to provide them with exorbitant incomes. They were also let go, and are now at the complete mercy of their father for income. This situation continued until August 2008 when Antti—in the same way that he was appointed, and equally unfathomably—was removed as chairman of the board, and complete control over the company reverted back to Veikko. This remained the family dynamic for the better part of a year.
Then in 2009, on May twenty-seventh, almost a year ago, two of the Veikko children, Antti and Kaarina, were kidnapped from the family home, and at the same time, paintings Veikko had recently acquired, by Cezanne, Lautrec and Mary Cassatt, were stolen. As the children came and went without notice for lengths of time, and although the theft of the paintings was realized the following day, the absence of Antti and Kaarina wasn’t taken seriously by either the family or authorities for three days, and then only because they couldn’t be located for questioning concerning the theft.
These two members of the Saukko industrial dynasty were kidnapped and held hostage for ransom. A kidnapping of such magnitude from such a powerful family was unprecedented in Finland. A long and complicated course of events unfolded.
May thirtieth: The brother and sister were declared by the police to be considered missing persons. However, the police didn’t immediately assume kidnapping to be the reason for their disappearance.
June second: A ransom e-mail was sent, in English, to the family matriarch, Anna-Leena. It read:
Sender: Charles Brown
Sent: 2. June 9:47
Mrs Saukko.
Please note that this email concerns your daughter K. and son A. who we will from now on call merchandise.
Merchandise is in good shape, healthy and so on. There are certain rules to obey in order to make us deliver Merchandise back to you.
1. No contact to any authorities! Not to any third parties, etc.
2. 0400769062, your mobile, should be on and ready to receive further instructions.
3. price will be paid in cash, used notes only. No new notes.
4. procedure. we instruct the payment delivery, you leave the cash there, and we will secure the payment. Please note that we will also check payment for any surveillance devices, etc. When payment is secured merchandise will be released. If surveillance devices are used to follow us, we will begin amputating the limbs of the merchandise, tourniquets used to prevent death, and will continue to do so until we have identified all surveillance devices and surveillance is discontinued.
5. ANY fault or trick, and you will never hear from us or the Merchandise again.
6. Price shall be 10,000,000 paid in euros, 6 in 500 notes, 2 in 200 notes, and 2 in 100 notes.
7. payment will be packed in two sports bags, instructions concerning delivery will be given later. Deliverer needs your mobile phone, a gps map and a car.
I noted that this was inconsistent with demand number two, as they had already stated that they had the mobile phone number. Were they careless, or working to give the impression of carelessness?
8. answer this email and let us know when you are ready to deliver.
Merchandise is out of the country of the moment.
You have now 12 hours to answer this email.
XM
Anna-Leena called her former husband, Veikko. He went against the kidnappers’ wishes and called the police immediately. He also made the requested initial contact by e-mail. The police considered whether the kidnapping was legitimate, and if so, whether the kidnappers’ use of English was a reasonable indication that Kaarina and Antti were truly now outside of Finland. Veikko Saukko made it clear that the police were to investigate, but should they fail to recover his children, the ransom would be paid according to the kidnappers’ instructions, whatever their demands might be.
Over the coming days, hundreds of police took part in the investigation, headed by the Helsinki Police Department, and the minister of the interior was kept informed of every action and development. The police had two significant clues.
1. Although the stolen paintings were valuable, artwork of far greater value was left untouched. Presumably, the kidnappings were perpetrated at the same time that the art thefts occurred. The stolen paintings were recently acquired and as yet uninsured. This displayed knowledge that insurance companies will continue investigations for
