| Arvid Ojasti | |||||
| Birth Name: | Arvid Edvard Fagerström | ||||
| Nickname: | Arvi | ||||
| Birth Date: | 18 June 1903 | ||||
| Birth Place: | Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian Empire | ||||
| Death Place: | Maturín, Venezuela
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| Allegiance: |  Finland | ||||
| Branch: | State Police | ||||
| Battles: | Winter War Continuation War | ||||
Arvid (Arvi) Edvard Ojasti (born Arvid Fagerström; 18 June 1903 – 6 December 1963) was a Finnish chief detective of the ValPo.
In July 1941, during the Continuation War, Ojasti, who worked as a superior in ValPo's Rovaniemi department, was ordered to join a 12-man Finnish group assisting German SS-Untersturmführer Wilhelm Laqua, the commander of Einsatzkommando Finnland, in Kirkenes, Norway. He was involved in the transfer of prisoners of war and executions. In the fall of 1941, men from the Finnish group worked in Nazi concentration camps in Norway. Some of them also moved with the Germans to the Soviet side in Karelia, where they supervised the local population and hunted for communists. At the end of the Continuation War and Finland switched sides, Ojasti joined the pro-German movement, and was transferred to the service of the German security police under Laqua.[1] [2]
After the end of the war, Ojasti fled to Norway, then Sweden, and finally Venezuela, where many other Finnish Nazis wanted for war crimes had moved to exile. Ojasti also assisted with the trade-ins of wartime loot. He traded with fellow fugitive Aarne Kauhanen.[3] Ojasti became a farmer, before working as a biology professor at the University of Caracas.[4] In December 1963, he was shot and killed under unclear circumstances by a military patrol at roadblock in the city of Maturín.