Thieves steal banknote tree decorations

/reuters/ - A Christmas tree decorated with banknotes worth about $2,000 (1,275 pounds) has been stripped by thieves at Oslo's main railway station, police say.
Magne Furuholmen, of Norwegian pop group a-ha, made flowers and stars out of banknotes when he was paid 14,000 Norwegian crowns to decorate a two-metre (6 ft) tree at the station, a popular hang-out for heroin addicts.
Furuholmen, who gained world fame with the a-ha song "Take on Me" and is also an artist, used 50, 100, 200 and 500-crown notes as decorations to symbolise the commercialisation of Christmas. He also hung up chains made of five-crown coins.
He shrugged off the widely predicted theft. "There was a distinct possibility that this was going to happen," Furuholmen told NRK public radio.
Asked if he would ask the police to track the thieves, he said: "I don't see it in that way. I see it more that a person has completed the work and taken an incredibly good payment."
Police told Reuters that railway staff had reported the theft on Wednesday.
Furuholmen was paid by Norway's state railways to decorate the tree, but decided to use his artist's fee to create the decorations themselves.
The station is guarded by security cameras, but they do not catch everything as they turn constantly.