A fake call would be investigated as a criminal matter
An extensive search was put into action after the emergency message was received. Photo/Landsbjörg
It is suspected that a fake call triggered an extensive search at Kerlingarfjöll on Monday and yesterday.
The superintendent of police says it is a violation of the criminal law to fool emergency teams and rescue teams. Work is being done to obtain information about the location of the message. An investigation into the emergency call is ongoing.
Almost 200 people worked on the search at Kerlingarfjöll, which lasted from Monday evening until Tuesday, due to emergency messages received through the online chat of the emergency line. The emergency calls were to the effect that two people were trapped in a cave in an area near Mt Kerlingafjöll. As the search progressed, suspicion that the call might be fake grew.
mbl.is talked to Svein Kristján Rúnarsson, the chief police officer in the South about the case.
Violation of criminal law
How are things handled in such cases?
"Hoaxes are, of course, a violation of the criminal law. If you lie to the emergency services, police or rescue teams, or the like, you are breaking Article 120 of the Criminal Code. There are fines or imprisonment of up to three months, so this is a serious matter.
Whatever the punishment is, it is very serious, if it turns out to be true, to trick the rescue team into doing such extensive operations, Rúnarsson says.
One case twenty years ago
Is this something you remember happening before?
"I remember one case over twenty years ago where people were searched for in the highlands. It turned out to be unfounded," he says. Cases of false alarm do not occur often and are very rare.
When he is asked about the financial side of the search, if it is a fake invitation, he says it is important that people seek help when they need it. However, operations of this magnitude are certainly costly.
"It's something that we naturally prefer not to look at and don't want to go into because we want people to seek help if they are in need. We do not want to discourage people from calling for help and not thinking about the costs if they are in need. We try not to go into that discussion at the same time. But of course, this is extremely costly, we have close to 200 people searching for almost 24 hours, people leaving work and they have tools and equipment, so this is a huge cost," Rúnarsson says.
All leads have been tracked and processed
Now you think, what if this is not a fake message? Is it conclusive that it is something strange?
"Yes, we think that we have followed all the threads we can follow, and closed all the leads that we can and have nothing further to build on to continue the search, and therefore, we decided to postpone it. Let's focus on this help request. There is a lot behind this decision, it's not just a simple decision: "Yes, now we've stopped and we can't do it anymore", but we've done various things before we make this decision," he says.
Everything leaves a trail
How easy or difficult is it to trace such messages?
"It's something we've been working on, both yesterday and since the search began, we've been following the trail. All traffic on the internet leaves traces so we're looking at those leads now and we're working on the leads we have."
Rúnarsson says that people send correct information in 99% of cases, however, it happens that poor information is received which still gives clues.
"But in this case, we're kind of stuck in that we don't have any more clues to work on in the search itself, so we're going to focus on that part and see where it takes us." We kind of didn't stop searching, but postponed the search until we have something more in hand.
If it turns out that this is not a fake message, there is something more behind it, it will probably be revealed very soon and we will continue the search. As the situation is now, there is nothing we have in our hands that justifies continuing any search in the mountains."
Hoaxing would be a criminal matter
Does everything point to this being a fake message?
"Yes, it is our opinion that this seems to be the case. Considering that we searched there for almost 24 hours and all the threads we had in our hands have been closed and processed."
Asked what to do if it is a fake call, he says that the case would then be investigated as a criminal case.
"Then this has become an investigation into a crime and we have an investigation underway. This is just investigated like any other criminal case. We investigate it accordingly and process it like any other criminal case," he concludes.
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