He was promised €25,000 to kill, now Norwegian Teenager to rot in UK jail 20 years

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

A 19-year-old Norwegian man, Johannes Kongsnes Natland, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to carry out an assassination in the United Kingdom after travelling to the country with firearms and ammunition.

Natland was sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday, October 16, after being found guilty of conspiracy to murder following a trial earlier this year. He must serve a minimum of 13 years in custody.

He also received a five-year prison sentence for firearms and ammunition offences, having previously pleaded guilty to those charges. The sentence will run concurrently with his 20-year term.

According to Counter Terrorism Policing London, Natland was arrested at a hotel in the early hours of March 19, 2025, just hours before he was due to carry out the planned killing.

He had arrived at Manchester Airport two days earlier, before travelling to Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, where he collected a bag containing two firearms and 19 rounds of ammunition.

Police recovered the weapons, which included a semi-automatic pistol and a revolver, from a plastic bag concealed beneath his hotel bed.

Investigators pieced together Natland’s movements using CCTV footage from the airport and hotel, alongside digital evidence recovered from his mobile phone.

Messages found on the device showed that he had received detailed instructions, including maps, photographs and videos, identifying the location of the hidden firearms.

Further analysis of his online communications revealed that he had been approached through social media while still in Norway and asked to carry out a shooting in the UK. A payment of €25,000 was reportedly offered for the assignment.

The individual using the username “Agent 47” allegedly instructed Natland on which flight to take, where to collect money in Huddersfield and which hotel to book upon arrival.

Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said Natland was arrested shortly before the planned assassination could be carried out, crediting the operation to cooperation among counter-terrorism officers, West Yorkshire Police and Norwegian law enforcement authorities.

Flanagan said investigators believed Natland had been tasked by someone connected to the Foxtrot Network, an organised criminal group sanctioned by the United Kingdom and the United States over its alleged role in orchestrating violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of Iran.

However, she stressed that investigators had not identified the intended target of the specific assassination and found no evidence of a direct link to Iran in Natland’s case.

She warned that hostile actors increasingly relied on criminal proxies recruited online with promises of substantial financial rewards, adding that those who accepted such assignments could be left to face the consequences alone.

During the trial, Natland denied intending to carry out the assassination, claiming he had planned instead to shoot himself in the foot to avoid repercussions for refusing the mission.

The jury rejected his account and found him guilty of conspiracy to murder.