Maureen Cathryn Harriet "Cats" Falck (11 July 1953 – date of death uncertain, between November 1984 and May 1985) was a Swedish television journalist who, together with her friend Lena Gräns, disappeared in Stockholm in 1984 while she was investigating a scandal involving the smuggling of weapons from Sweden to communist states in Eastern Europe.
The deaths remain unsolved but later reports claim that they were assassinated in a state-sponsored operation by agents from East Germany.
[citation needed] At the time of her disappearance, Falck was employed as a reporter for the Swedish public service television news program Rapport.
[1] Prior to her disappearance, Falck had told her work-mates and her fiancé (the author Lasse Strömstedt) that she was about to reveal "something big".
[2] On 18 November 1984, Falck and her friend Lena Gräns were last observed by witnesses as they left the restaurant Öhrns Hörn ("Öhrn's Corner") at the crossing of Folkungagatan–Borgmästargatan at Södermalm in Stockholm.
[2] On 29 May 1985, their bodies were found in the missing car on the bottom of the Hammarby Canal at Norra Hammarbyhamnen in southern Stockholm.
They theorized that the women had driven too fast down a slope and lost control of the car which hit a 15 cm high rail for a harbor crane and flipped into the water.
[1] Another theory has been that Falck had information about the Swedish armaments company Bofors and that they sold weapons to countries with embargoes through intermediaries.
[2] On the 8th anniversary of the disappearance, Ulla Jones came in contact with someone who claimed to know a Säpo (Swedish Security Service) employee with information about the death.
Andersson has personally investigated the ASEA story and he has found no indications that Falck had any unique sources, or any information beyond what had already been publicised in other news.
[2] In April 1997, the Swedish Security Service received an anonymous letter sent from Germany in which it was claimed that the former East German secret police Stasi had carried out the killings.
[3] In the letter, Stasi was further blamed for the death of the Swedish weapons inspector Carl-Fredrik Algernon, the chief investigator of the Bofors scandal, in the Stockholm Metro in 1987.
[7] [8] According to an article in the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, the suspicions against the man also involved the murder of Cats Falck and Lena Gräns.
[7] According to the article, the alleged death squad had operated directly under the East German government and not under Stasi as it was claimed in the earlier letter.
[7] The group had entered Sweden on false passports via West Germany and Denmark and then sought contact with Falck in Stockholm.
[10] An investigation made by reporter Christoph Andersson on behalf of Sveriges Radio, the Swedish public service radio broadcasting service, found that Falck had been investigating the export of isostatic presses, which can be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, to Eastern Germany and the Stasi-controlled enterprise AHB Elektronik Import Export.