Many questions remain about what happened, and the story continues to grip Denmark's population of 4.5 million. Book publishers there have been trying to sign deals with the parties involved, and there are rumors of a Hollywood movie.

The story has also helped validate blogs as a news-reporting medium in Denmark. Dorte Toft, an independent journalist and former Computerworld Denmark reporter, raised some of the initial questions about IT Factory's business through a series of articles in .

Toft was suspicious of Bagger's résumé, and determined that the California university where he claimed to have earned his PhD does not exist. An American woman in Denmark said later that Bagger had hired her to pose as a university administrator on the telephone to verify his degree to reporters.

IT Factory filed for bankruptcy earlier this month not long after Bagger disappeared. Its chairman, Asger Jensby, has estimated that 90 percent of the company's turnover was fictitious.

Bagger was still being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday, a spokeswoman said. The paperwork is being prepared for his return to Denmark "in the very near future," she said.