A Poisonous Story Of Corruption

The biggest bribery scandal in Icelandic history

The story of the Samherji case is not only the largest bribery scandal in Icelandic history, but also a global tale of corporate malfeasance, political corruption, journalistic tenacity, and artistic freedom. It unfolds like an international crime thriller, with chapters involving the world’s most notorious whistleblowers, European financial institutions, African elites and the shadowy practices of one of Iceland’s most powerful fishing companies: Samherji.

Anecdotes and antidotes

“Imagine waking up every morning for four years with mysterious physical symptoms — wondering if a hidden poison that your own doctors cannot detect is slowly destroying your body from the inside.”

This might sound like the story of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 due to polonium-210 spiked tea. But far from Kremlin-sponsored terrorism, this line appeared on a 2021 GoFundMe page for Jóhannes Stefánsson, a former fisheries executive turned whistleblower.

His rather remarkable account, which includes claims of being poisoned after leaking internal documents, offers a glimpse into the high personal stakes behind the Samherji case — a scandal that exposed not just corporate crime, but the extreme measures some are willing to take to silence dissent.

It’s one of many threads in a decade-long, convoluted saga of fishy corruption, secrecy, and fallout spanning continents.

Cover illustration by Halldór Baldursson

The weight of the ocean

Since its settlement in the 9th century, Iceland has been dependent on the sea. For centuries, fisheries were the lifeline of a nation marked by extreme poverty, brutal winters, and geographic isolation. In the 20th century, fish became not only sustenance, but the cornerstone of national prosperity. The term “gull hafsins” (the gold of the ocean) came to define Iceland’s marine wealth. Legally, these natural resources are supposed to be held in public trust, but in practice, control over fishing rights has often become a matter of political favouritism and concentrated economic power.

“Years after the initial revelations, the Samherji case remains a landmark case in the history of Icelandic corporate scandals.”

Samherji, founded in 1983 in the northern town of Akureyri, is the embodiment of this evolution. It began as a modest fishing operation and, over the following decades, grew into one of Iceland’s (and later Europe’s) largest and most powerful seafood companies. Today, Samherji controls a vast network of subsidiaries, vessels, and processing plants, with operations stretching from Iceland to the Faroe Islands, the UK, Germany and Namibia.

The company has been a pioneer in vertical integration — controlling everything from catching to processing to export — which has helped it maximise profits and minimise outside scrutiny. But Samherji’s rise has not come without controversy. It has long been accused of leveraging its political connections to secure favourable access to quotas and regulatory advantages. Domestically, the company has also become notorious for its adversarial stance towards the press, transparency advocates, and even government institutions that attempt to scrutinise its activities.

Fishing for opportunities in Namibia

In 2011, Samherji turned its attention to Namibia. The southwestern African nation, rich in marine life due to the nutrient-rich Benguela Current, had established a heavily regulated fishing sector after gaining independence from South Africa in 1990. The goal was to preserve fish stocks while ensuring that Namibians benefited from their own natural resources. Foreign ownership of fishing rights was prohibited, but local quota holders could lease or resell their rights, creating a dark grey market ripe for abuse.

Samherji deployed Jóhannes Stefánsson, a former fisherman turned executive, to Walvis Bay to manage and expand the company’s operations. Initially hired in 2007 to scout new markets, Jóhannes had built a reputation as a resourceful and ambitious operator. By 2011, he was at the heart of Samherji’s African expansion. Jóhannes would later reveal that Samherji’s business model in Namibia was based not on competition or innovation, but on corruption. The company, he claimed, systematically bribed politicians and officials in exchange for access to quotas of horse mackerel — one of Namibia’s most valuable fish stocks.

The whistleblower

In 2016, Jóhannes resigned from Samherji and began cooperating with anti-corruption investigators. In 2019, he became the central source behind the so-called “Fishrot Files,” a trove of internal documents, emails, contracts and bank records that revealed the inner workings of Samherji’s Namibian operations. These files were shared with WikiLeaks and media outlets in Iceland and Namibia.

According to the Fishrot Files, Samherji paid tens of millions of Icelandic krónur in bribes to Namibian officials to secure quotas. Payments were funneled through shell companies and intermediaries, including key figures like Namibia’s former fisheries minister Bernhardt Esau and justice minister Sacky Shanghala. Both were later arrested, along with four others, in a group dubbed the “Fishrot Six.” But Samherji didn’t stop at bribes. The files also exposed how the company allegedly used accounting tricks to shift profits out of Namibia and into tax havens, depriving the country of tax revenues and violating both Namibian and international laws.

In 2023, further revelations deepened the scandal: RÚV reported that individuals acting on behalf of Samherji had unlawfully accessed Jóhannes Stefánsson’s personal Dropbox and work email accounts. The most prominent of these figures was Jón Óttar Ólafsson, a former police officer turned private investigator. He admitted in court filings that he had accessed Jóhannes’s Dropbox after being informed by Samherji’s lawyer, Arna McClure, of an upcoming Kveikur broadcast about the company. In leaked emails, Jón Óttar also suggested that Jóhannes be forcibly committed to a psychiatric unit.

Jón Óttar’s tactics weren’t confined to digital surveillance. According to journalist Helgi Seljan, the investigator also followed and confronted reporters. “I was holding my child, and he stepped between us,” Helgi recalled in an interview with Mannlíf. Helgi said he learned Jón Óttar had obtained his home address and had been seen near his residence, further escalating fears of harassment.

Samherji CEO Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson has consistently denied any personal involvement in the Fishrot scandal, asserting that the company’s former Namibia operations director, Jóhannes Stefánsson, acted independently.

In a 2021 statement, Þorsteinn Már expressed being “grossly offended” by the accusations and emphasised that he was never involved in, nor aware of, any corrupt dealings involving Stefánsson during his tenure at Samherji. However, subsequent investigations revealed over 1,500 text messages exchanged between Baldvinsson and Stefánsson during the latter’s time in Namibia, suggesting a closer relationship than previously acknowledged. Despite these findings, he has maintained that he had limited communication with Stefánsson and was unaware of any illicit activities. He acknowledged shortcomings in oversight, stating that Samherji’s mistake was not having better control over its Namibian operations, and expressed regret for not addressing the issues sooner.

The scandal hits home

In Iceland, the revelations ignited a media firestorm. The investigative program Kveikur, aired by national broadcaster RÚV, partnered with Stundin and Al Jazeera to publish the findings. The public reaction was one of shock, but also resignation. Samherji had long been a lightning rod in Icelandic society, admired by some for its business success and criticised by others for its perceived arrogance and lack of accountability.

Samherji’s CEO, Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson, temporarily stepped down after the leaks were made public but later returned to his position. The company denied all wrongdoing, claiming the whistleblower was acting out of revenge. It tried to portray Jóhannes as a rogue employee and insisted that all of its business dealings were legal.

The scandal prompted significant political reactions. Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir claimed that the revelations called for a thorough investigation, stating that “no stone should be left unturned” in uncovering the truth behind the allegations. She further condemned the company’s tactics, remarking that such behaviour is “unbearable, unnatural and should not be tolerated in a democratic society.”

In contrast, then-Fisheries Minister Kristján Þór Júlíusson and former board chairman of Samherji, from industry-friendly Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn faced criticism for his response. He admitted to contacting Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson after the scandal broke, expressing concern for the company, which many perceived as a conflict of interest. This led to public outcry and calls for his resignation, which went unheeded.

“I will not make decisions based on assumptions or media coverage. I will follow the law,” he claimed when announcing that he would not recuse himself from the case.

Bloodthirsty guerrilla PR

But it wasn’t just the whistleblower who found himself faced with the ire of these titans of industry. Some of Iceland’s most prominent investigative journalists ended up being more than reporters in the saga; they also became targets of the company at its centre. Reporters from national broadcaster RÚV’s Kveikur, along with journalists from Stundin and Heimildin, were subjected to an aggressive campaign by Samherji aimed at discrediting their work. The company filed defamation suits, demanded retractions, and publicly questioned the integrity and motives of those covering the case.
“Reporters from national broadcaster RÚV’s Kveikur, along with journalists from Stundin and Kjarninn, were subjected to an aggressive campaign by Samherji aimed at discrediting their work.”

Central to this campaign was Samherji’s self-styled ‘guerrilla division’, an internal group dedicated to undermining critics and controlling the narrative surrounding the Fishrot scandal. Leaked internal communications revealed that this division engaged in coordinated efforts to surveil, smear, and intimidate journalists, whistleblowers, and even members of civil society. Tactics included monitoring personal finances, orchestrating online harassment, and attempting to manipulate leadership elections within the Icelandic Journalists’ Union to prevent perceived adversaries from gaining influence.

In one particularly disturbing exchange, a PR consultant expressed a desire for Samherji’s CEO, Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson, to “sharpen the knives and start to butcher Jóhannes” — referring to whistleblower Jóhannes Stefánsson. Samherji’s chief attorney, Arna McClure, responded with “Amen!” The consultant then remarked, “You are so bloodthirsty,” prompting McClure to reply, “Hey, I know. I want to stab, turn around, and rub salt in the wound.”

Iceland is a developed capitalist country and no stranger to aggressive corporate PR, but the disclosure of such wanton disregard to decency and legality seemed to shatter certain illusions of innocence that many among the public held about the corporate class.

These attacks were not just rhetorical. In a highly controversial move, police in North Iceland opened a criminal investigation into several journalists who worked on the Fishrot story, summoning them for formal questioning. The investigation was launched following complaints from Samherji associates and centred on supposed violations of privacy laws — despite the reporting being clearly in the public interest. Critics, including Iceland’s Journalists’ Union and international watchdogs, denounced the move as an intimidation tactic. One of the reporters, Kveikur editor Þóra Arnórsdóttir, was summoned to give a statement under suspicion of “infringement of personal rights” — a move widely seen as an unprecedented and deeply troubling escalation.

Meanwhile, Samherji’s legal campaign continued through Iceland’s court system. Lawsuits were brought against multiple journalists, accusing them of defamation and damage to the company’s reputation. Though many of these cases were eventually dropped or dismissed, they added financial strain, stress, and a chilling effect on press freedom in a country long considered a haven for free expression.

Despite the pressure, the journalists stood firm. The Kveikur team, in collaboration with Stundin and international outlets like Al Jazeera, continued to publish damning stories based on the Fishrot Files and whistleblower testimony. Their reporting not only laid bare the mechanics of Samherji’s alleged bribery and tax evasion schemes but also triggered parliamentary debates, public protests, and investigations both in Iceland and abroad.

The war on satire

In a bizarre twist to the long-running Samherji case, Icelandic artist Odee Friðriksson [previously known as Oddur Eysteinn Friðriksson] — aka Odee — decided to troll the notorious fishing giant with a slickly executed spoof website, samherji.co.uk. The page looked like a genuine corporate mea culpa, complete with a fake logo and what appeared to be Samherji owning up to its alleged bribery and environmental abuses in Namibia. The whole thing was part of an art project titled We’re Sorry, his graduation project from the Iceland Academy of the Arts. Many companies might have chosen to ignore what is effectively just an art school prank, but not Samherji. Instead the company went into full attack mode and dragged the artist before the UK High Court over trademark violations and “malicious falsehoods.”

“Meanwhile, the whole episode plays like a corporate overreaction to an art school provocation.”

The court sided with Samherji, ruling that the parody crossed the line into deception, rather ironically calling it an “instrument of fraud.” The decision, delivered with all the joyless weight of international business law, has left free expression watchdogs wringing their hands and wondering if satire is still legal when it targets someone rich enough to sue. Meanwhile, the whole episode plays like a corporate overreaction to an art school provocation — a reminder that in the age of memes, mimicry and Trump, some companies will spend more energy chasing jokesters than cleaning up their reputations.

The international dimension

But the scandal extended beyond the borders of Iceland and Namibia. Norway’s largest bank, DNB, was implicated after it emerged that Samherji used its accounts to transfer illicit payments. Though DNB later closed the accounts and claimed it was unaware of any wrongdoing, the incident sparked an investigation by Norwegian regulators and added to the growing sense that this was not just a local issue, but a case study in global corruption.

The Fishrot Files also revealed the failure of international oversight mechanisms. Despite anti-money laundering laws and regulations in place, large sums were moved through global banks without raising red flags. NGOs like Global Witness and international newsrooms used the case to highlight systemic weaknesses in how corporations and governments are held accountable across borders.

Fallout in Namibia

The political consequences in Namibia were immediate and severe. Fisheries minister Bernhardt Esau and justice minister Sacky Shanghala resigned within days of the Fishrot revelations and were soon arrested along with four others, including Esau’s son-in-law Tamson Hatuikulipi and the chairman of Fishcor, James Hatuikulipi. The group became known as the “Fishrot Six.” They have been held in custody since 2019, with their legal proceedings mired in delays, allegations of judicial interference, and claims of missing evidence — raising concerns about the integrity and efficiency of the Namibian legal process.

The scandal ignited public outrage and led to mass protests in Windhoek and other cities. Civil society organisations, including the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and the Namibia Institute for Democracy, demanded far-reaching reforms to curb corruption and increase accountability in the allocation of fishing rights. They called for compensation to the Namibian people, the strengthening of anti-corruption legislation, and greater transparency in government contracts. Investigative journalists and activists in Namibia faced pressure and even threats, but continued to expose how political elites profited at the expense of local communities.

Namibia’s fishing industry, once praised for its post-independence conservation and equity model, suffered lasting reputational damage. International investors grew wary and exports were tainted by association with corruption. Smaller, local companies complained that they had long been pushed aside by politically connected insiders and foreign multinationals who manipulated quota systems for private gain. The government introduced some reforms in the wake of the scandal, including a push for quota auctions and restructuring of Fishcor, but critics argue that the deeply entrenched networks of patronage and secrecy that enabled the Fishrot scandal remain largely intact. For many Namibians, the scandal has come to symbolise the broader failure of the post-colonial state to deliver on its promises of economic justice and democratic accountability.

The legacy

Years after the initial revelations, the Samherji case remains a landmark case in the history of Icelandic corporate scandals. It laid bare the contradiction between Iceland’s image as a clean, egalitarian society that routinely tops international lists that measure lack of corruption and the reality of unchecked corporate influence. It also illustrated the continued influence of western companies that seek to exploit the fragility of governance systems in resource-rich developing nations like Namibia.

For whistleblower Jóhannes Stefánsson, the consequences were personal and severe. He claims to have been poisoned and continues to live under protection due to threats against his life. Despite the risks, he has testified before multiple international bodies and continues to advocate for transparency in the fishing industry.

“[The Samherji case] is a story about power, secrecy and the consequences of moral compromise in a globalised economy.”

The scandal also left its mark on journalism and free expression. One of Iceland’s largest companies had flexed its financial, political and legal muscle to go after journalists and the arts. Through dubious means and even more dubious characters Samherji had managed to make life imitate art.

The collaborative investigations by Kveikur, Stundin, and Al Jazeera were praised as a model of cross-border investigative reporting. Their work not only exposed wrongdoing, but forced conversations about how Iceland regulates its corporate giants and how Africa manages its natural resources.

Ultimately, The Samherji case is not just about one company or one set of crimes. It is a story about power, secrecy and the consequences of moral compromise in a globalised economy. Whether justice will be fully served remains to be seen. But the scandal has left a dark stain on Iceland’s proud history of seafaring and fishing and ensured that the name Samherji will forever be associated with a dark chapter in the country’s modern history.

However, despite the scandal, Samherji remains a dominant force in Icelandic fisheries and continues to operate globally, with expansion efforts in aquaculture and offshore production. Recently, the company’s shady secret agent Jón Óttar has been making headlines again, this time for performing cloak-and-dagger espionage for Iceland’s richest man Björgúlfur Thor. Yet again shocking the public as it gets another peek into the unscrupulous nature of some of the country’s richest and most powerful.

It is hard to say what, if anything, really changed due to the dedication of the journalists who put themselves on the line, or Jóhannes who dared open up. But as the Icelandic saying goes ‘those who row, fish’ and as the Samherji case shows, those with the biggest boats fish the most.

On the day this story was published, May 23, 2025, Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson announced he would be resigning from his post as CEO of Samherji.