Criminal networks are recruiting and tasking minors as paid operatives for shootings, bombings and contract killings. Europol, the law enforcement agency of the European Union, has a term for it: ‘violence as a service’. Teenagers are deployed to carry out attacks while adult organisers remain insulated from prosecution. This model was developed in Sweden, and it is now spreading. Last month, Spanish police dismantled a network in Alicante that recruited Swedish and Danish teenagers for murder-for-hire operations.
In Sweden, gang violence is considered a national emergency. According to Reuters, in January 2025 alone there were more than 30 gang-related bombings in the Stockholm region. The Associated Press reported that Sweden recorded 124 explosions and 261 shootings in the first nine months of 2023. There were 257 bomb attacks in 2019, up from 162 in 2018.
Who is being recruited? A 2021 report by Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention found that individuals born abroad, as well as those born in Sweden to two foreign-born parents, are significantly overrepresented among suspects in registered offending, including serious violent crime, even after controlling for income, education, age and gender.
Official crime data shows that foreign-born residents and those with two foreign-born parents are overrepresented among suspects in serious offending. Sweden’s foreign-born population includes large communities originating from the Middle East and Africa, including Syrians, Afghans, Somalis and Iraqis.
The reason young, foreign-born or second-generation immigrant children are targeted by gangs is likely economic. Analysis by the OECD of Sweden’s labour market has shown that immigrants and their children face persistent employment disadvantages, with youth unemployment and disengagement concentrated among lower-educated groups in which foreign-born and second-generation populations are overrepresented.
Many of the worst crimes are being committed by just a few groups. On 12 March, the US Treasury sanctioned the Foxtrot Network and its leader, Rawa Majid. It said Foxtrot was one of the most ‘notorious’ criminal gangs based in Sweden, and ‘one of the most prominent drug-trafficking organisations in the region’. The department said that Foxtrot ‘routinely’ uses teenagers to carry out attacks. The American and British authorities have also said that Foxtrot orchestrated attacks on behalf of Iran, including an attack targeting the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm. Sweden’s Security Service has separately warned that Iran uses criminal networks in Sweden to carry out violent acts.
Swedish gangs have built a formidable system of crime which combines segregation, disaffection and violence into an exportable method of violence. All of Europe is vulnerable.
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