Paal Enger, a rising prospect for a celebrated Norwegian soccer club who traded a game that he loved for another — art theft — that he absolutely relished, culminating in his infamous 1994 heist of Edvard Munch’s masterpiece “The Scream,” died on June 29 in Oslo. He was 57.
His death was confirmed by Nils Christian Nordhus, an Oslo-based lawyer who formerly represented Mr. Enger. He did not provide any more details.
Mr. Enger, who was born in Oslo on March 26, 1967, rose from the junior system of Vaalerenga, a five-time champion of Norway’s top-level league, now known as Eliteserien, and in 1985 made his debut with the club.
As a youth, he was a fan of the Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona. But his real hero, according to a 2021 profile in The Athletic, was Don Vito Corleone, the fictional crime boss played by Marlon Brando in “The Godfather.” He was so immersed in Mafia lore that when he was 15, he flew to New York to see for himself the locations where the Academy Award-winning “Godfather” films were shot.
By then, he was no stranger to the world of life outside the law. “I grew up in Tveita, on the east side of Oslo, and people there don’t have much money,” he said in an interview last year with the British tabloid The Sun. “We started doing crime when we were very young and I found it exciting. I carried on because I enjoyed it very much.”
Graduating from boosting candy to cracking safes and blowing up automated teller machines with neighborhood friends, he proved a phenom in both athletics and crime.