Unsolved Mysteries: The Foiled Bank Robbery and the Four Missing Men

The Intriguing Dahlsjö Case Has Enthralled Sweden for 55 Years

July 29, 1965, started as seemingly another day in Gothenburg. It was the height of summer, Alma Cogan’s rendition of The Birds and the Bees was number one in the charts, and the sixties were in full swing. Check-jackets and coloured shirts were all the rage, and while the summer of love would be two years away, the atmosphere should have been joyous as Swedes soaked up the summer sun. However, this would be a day like no other in Sweden’s central port city, and instead of sun, the rain was pouring down. The day would end with an audacious bank robbery foiled and four men missing to this very day.

It is something of a stereotype that Scandanavia is inherently sleepy. While the popular Scandinavian noir genre of detective fiction has done something to correct this perception in the modern era, there is an element of truth in the original beliefs, certainly in a historical context. Crime was something that once was somewhat uncommon, with the most recent statistics still placing Sweden far down the list of criminal hotspots. These facts alone make July 29 an anomaly for Gothenburg.