Cats Falck

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 dead bodies of Falck and Gräns were later found at the bottom of the Hammarby Canal in Stockholm. The deaths remain unsolved but later reports claim that they were assassinated in a state-sponsored operation by agents from East Germany.

Cats Falck was born in Enskede in Stockholm, Sweden.

At the time of her disappearance, Falck was employed as a reporter for the Swedish public service television news program Rapport. She also claimed that when the story broke, she would get Stora Journalistpriset, "The Swedish Grand Prize for Journalism". In retrospect, several fellow journalists have claimed it would be very strange for a journalist to not inform her superiors that she was onto something big. If she had informed them, she would have been given more time and resources to pursue the story.

Disappearance 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. After half a bottle of wine the women were likely over the limit.

Both Falck and Gräns were wearing high heels. In the letter, which was written in English, two retired Stasi officials and four other East German government officials were named, while the purported death squad was said to have consisted of three persons. The case also received much attention in German media and prompted the German Federal Police to open an investigation.

In September 2003, a 53-year-old German citizen, named as "Jürgen G" in a press release from the German Prosecutor-General, was arrested in Berlin suspected of having been a member of a group that carried out a number of assassinations on orders from the East German government from 1976 to 1987.

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. The German investigation was closed in 2006.

Other theories 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.