A Norwegian man facing charges of human trafficking, prostitution, and the exploitation of women was permitted to change his legal sex marker to ‘female’ ahead of his trial, and is now being referred to as a woman in court. Harald Tancred Paulsrud Bye, 36, is accused of sex trafficking three “particularly vulnerable” women, two of whom are mentally impaired.
According to court records provided to Reduxx by a source close to the case, the offenses are alleged to have occurred between April and October 2024. The first charge against Bye, abuse of a vulnerable situation or other improper conduct, is said to have involved him forcing a woman to provide sexual acts. The offense is considered aggravated, with “particular weight being placed on the fact that the victim was mentally disabled and that gross coercion was used.”
To protect the dignity of the victims, Reduxx has chosen to use pseudonyms for all three women who are reported to have been sexually abused.
The charges allege that Bye sex trafficked a young woman diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability and fetal alcohol syndrome for six months. Reduxx will refer to her as ‘Maren’ in this article.
They further allege that Bye forced Maren to have sex with multiple people by ‘exerting pressure, shouting, manipulating, threatening and pushing,’ and by exploiting her intellectual disability and cognitive functioning.
According to the charges, Bye took control of Maren’s finances and her social media accounts. He then created profiles in her name on Grindr, Gaysir, and Telegram, using those accounts—along with his own—to arrange meetings with men who agreed to pay for sexual access to her.
On at least three occasions in September of 2024, Bye arranged for Maren to perform oral sex on another man, and to be penetrated vaginally and anally.
During the same period, Bye is also alleged to have exploited another woman with an intellectual disability.
Some of the incidents are said to have occurred in Sweden between June and September 2024. Bye allegedly forced a woman identified here as ‘Ragna’ to ‘enter into a polyamorous relationship’ with him and Maren, and repeatedly sexually abused both women, sometimes at the same time.
Bye is also alleged to have used Grindr again in an attempt to prostitute a third woman with a mental disability. The allegations state that he ‘attempted to force, exploit or induce a person into prostitution or other sexual acts and forced services,’ and that he sent messages to ‘a large number of persons’ on Grindr offering sexual intercourse with the woman in exchange for payment. The attempt was unsuccessful, but the charges are considered aggravated due to his alleged use of ‘gross coercion.’
The charges also describe a similar case in 2020 involving three other women. Prosecutors allege that Bye coerced and exploited them by involving them in a polyamorous sexual relationship.
Additional charges against Bye involve fraud, including taking control of one of his intellectually vulnerable victim’s finances and enriching himself by exploiting her dyscalculia and dyslexia.
The indictment describes an alleged broader aggravated fraud scheme where Bye allegedly gained access to one of his victim’s banking and credit lines and ran up large debts in her name. Prosecutors say this included credit loans totaling NOK 23,468, a Remember Black Mastercard with an NOK 80,000 limit that allegedly ballooned into NOK 113,069 in debt, and the opening of a new bank account where the victim’s August welfare benefit of NOK 23,417 was redirected and spent.
They further allege he used her Klarna account for purchases and travel bookings totaling NOK 56,031, and that additional installment purchases were sent to collections, producing losses described in the indictment. Alongside that, he is accused of obtaining or ordering multiple high-end phones in her name without intent to pay—activity that prosecutors say caused Telia losses of NOK 121,288, plus further losses claimed by OneCall (NOK 2,034) and Telenor (NOK 16,210)—while also allegedly reselling devices and directing portions of the proceeds, including NOK 8,451 and NOK 11,000, into his own account.
The amounts listed in the indictment total the equivalent of approximately $37,000 USD.
National broadcaster NRK protected Bye’s identity when reporting on the trial this week, and referred to him with feminine pronouns. The taxpayer-funded outlet reported that Bye, who has already altered his legal sex from male to female, argued in court that he had a “difficult childhood.”
On the first day in court, Bye reportedly stated: “I don’t know what I did wrong.”
However, just three years ago Bye can be seen describing himself as a “psychopath” and boasting of his extensive abuses of vulnerable women. In 2022, Bye was convicted in Bergen District Court for a series of criminal offenses, including financial fraud and theft. Bye exploited women he was in relationships with, and used threats and coercion to manipulate them.
Bizarrely, in 2023, Bye reached out to Underdog Media Group, an independent media production company, to publicly “confess” his many crimes, prompting the company to explore producing a documentary on him. During the course of the documentary’s filming, Bye can be seen abusing and manipulating women he forms relationships with, and in one case, convinced a woman to take out over 1 million Norwegian kroner in loans in order to buy cars in his name.
TV presenter Kjell-Ola Kleiven conducted a series of interviews with Bye for the two-part documentary, which was titled Psykopaten.
After their first interaction, in which Bye repeatedly bullies and manipulates his girlfriend on camera, Kleiven began to question the ethics of giving attention to him.
A period of time passed during which Kleiven and his team neglected to conduct a follow-up interview. Bye took personal offense, and began to send Kleiven threatening messages and images of himself brandishing weapons.
“You son of a whore,” Bye said in one message he sent to Kleiven. “I hope someone comes and shoots your family. Your wife. Your children. Everyone.”
Throughout the documentary, Bye, speaking of a girlfriend, repeats the expression: “You believe in love. I believe in your money.” He also blamed the women he abused for his actions, claiming that his behavior was the result of feeling “neglected” romantically.
“When I have a new lady, it is very exciting at first. But now I feel like she wants to try to destroy me, mentally, bit by bit, because she knows how I react. She knows how tired I get of being rejected, and she focuses on all the negative things about me,” Bye said.
“It’s the stupidest thing she can do. When I don’t get anything in return I get really low, and then I get a little desperate. When I get desperate, I get cynical thoughts, and I start to scam people. Then I start to hate everyone around me because I feel completely abandoned.”
The trial against Bye is ongoing, and a verdict is expected in February.
The Norwegian Correctional Service’s policy on the placement of inmates takes into account a convict’s “gender identity” and legal sex as stated on personal identification documents. It is therefore likely that if convicted, Bye may be placed in a women’s prison to serve his sentence.
Earlier this month, a Norwegian court heard the appeal of two trans-identified men who were convicted last year of the rape of a young girl. One of the men, Damien “Damia Scarlet Rose Nesne” Baar, has also begun the process to change his legal sex marker to ‘female.’
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