Grete Faremo (Ap) abruptly resigned from her top position at the UN following financial waste and abuse of power. While her deputy is to be extradited to the FBI for fraud, money laundering and bribery, she herself slipped under the radar, protected by the Labour Party. Last year she reappeared to combat abuse of power, but downplays her own role in what is described as the greatest UN scandal of all time.
The “Faremo years” in the UN organisation UNOPS were a continuous scandal consisting of financial waste, fraud, money laundering, bribery and abuse of power.
It cost Norwegian taxpayers NOK 1.3 billion through the aid budget. At the same time, Faremo enjoyed a coveted retreat position with a total annual tax-free remuneration of USD 250,000 to 300,000.
The period known as the “Faremo years”, which still casts dark shadows over the UN system, began with the appointment of Grete Faremo as Executive Director of UNOPS – the United Nations Office for Project Services – in August 2014.
It ended with her abrupt resignation on 8 May 2022. Internal audit had been breathing down her neck. When external reviews pointed to weak governance, inadequate risk control and poor follow-up, it was suddenly over. The scandal was reported in the major newspaper The New York Times.
The following figure shows Norwegian aid to UNOPS. The “Faremo years” – full years with Grete Faremo as leader – are marked in red.
Aid to UNOPS and the Faremo years. Source: Norad
Downplays
Faremo herself describes the scandal as a 2022 phenomenon.
– The UNOPS scandal in 2022 is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life, Faremo stated to Dagens Næringsliv on Saturday 25 April.
But she began her answer by saying that “trust-based management comes with a risk”. Implicitly, she acknowledges that it involved a risk to have confidence in her.
Facsimile of DN 25 April.
Whether, in Faremo’s mind, the scandal concerns the “Faremo years” or the fact that it was exposed in 2022 remains unclear.
“That was enough”
The scandal had persisted over a longer period. In DN’s article “Warned by her own leaders”, with the subtitle “The largest UN scandal in recent times”, the former head of communications at UNOPS, Jon Lidén, stated that he resigned from his position as early as February 2017. The reason was Grete Faremo’s extravagant spending.
He justified his resignation to DN with the following statement: “That was enough”, and rhetorical questions: “Were we to spend millions of dollars on a campaign that had no other purpose than for Grete to be allowed to sing at the UN General Assembly?”.
At that time, Norwegian aid to UNOPS was still moderate. In 2017, UNOPS received NOK 77 million in Norwegian aid funds. The following year it surged, with as much as NOK 361 million in aid.
The new major sponsor in the Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the current leader of Høyre and friend of Mona Juul, Ine Eriksen Søreide.
Then Minister of Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Søreide (right) in 2019, during the Faremo years. Here with Erna Solberg, at the home of then UN ambassador Mona Juul. Photo: Pontus Höök / NTB
Did not want quality control
There were several who attempted to warn Faremo against her extravagant spending spree with other people’s money.
The only person in UNOPS’ leadership with technical project experience, Henrik Linders, had the task of ensuring quality control of the projects to which UNOPS channelled funds. He had already raised critical questions regarding the routines for quality assurance. Faremo did not appreciate this.
When he refused to sign documents he believed concealed an irresponsible practice, he was called in and dismissed in the autumn of 2019. Faremo maintained that they no longer had need of his competence.
With both Lidén and Linders out of the picture, it was in reality Grete Faremo and UNOPS’ deputy director Vitaly Vanshelboim who ran the operation, in tandem, without quality control.
Today, Vanshelboim is imprisoned in Spain, suspected of fraud, money laundering and of having accepted bribes. It has been decided that he is to be extradited to the United States, where the FBI has investigated the case for several years.
Faremo has not yet been charged or convicted of anything. But nor are there any documents that exonerate her.
Slipped under the radar – assisted by party associates
No scandals appear to be large enough for the Labour Party, provided the party membership book is in order. Even Thorbjørn Jagland’s close association with the sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein, including boasting about “the girls in Tirana” and being charged with gross corruption, has not cost him his party membership.
The same applies to Faremo. When she stood on bare ground, caught by internal audit, the press, and perhaps with the FBI on her heels, she slipped under the radar.
At that point, the company Try Råd came to her assistance. Although Try was sold to Ferd in 2019, it is still the founder and long-standing Labour Party politician Kjetil Try who serves as chairman and sets the direction for the company’s activities. And it is no secret that Try is the Labour Party’s court supplier when it comes to strategic advice and campaigns.
Rewarded with a new position
After a few years in a low-profile role at Try, Faremo reappeared in public life.
On 18 March 2025, approximately three months before she turned 70, she was elected as head of the EOS Committee (EOS-utvalget). There she is to ensure that Norway’s intelligence services comply with laws and regulations and do not engage in abuse of power.
This includes the Intelligence Service (Etterretningstjenesten), the Police Security Service (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste) and the National Security Authority (Nasjonal sikkerhetsmyndighet).
This is a suitable part-time position that provides her with a respectable supplementary pension of approximately NOK 500,000 per year.
Whether the appointment of Camilla Reksten to the Intelligence Service has been on Faremo’s desk remains unclear. Camilla Reksten was, as is known, Terje Rød-Larsen’s closest associate at IPI during the period 2010 to 2020, where she had frequent contact with Jeffrey Epstein.
She also disappeared from the radar when Rød-Larsen was dismissed. But recently VG revealed that Reksten is working in the Intelligence Service, where Faremo is the one tasked with ensuring that the organisation meets normal standards of propriety and credibility.