A wave of street crime has recently swept the Scandinavian kingdom. Even the head of the Swedish government claims that there is no other situation like it anywhere else in the world.
Sweden’s quiet streets are no longer quiet
Once quiet Swedish streets are now shaken almost daily by robberies, murders, explosions and shootings, but that’s not even the worst of it. The horror of the situation is that all these crimes are mostly committed by underage teenagers who are hired by Arab gangs as hitmen.
The payback for tolerance towards migrants has come sooner than expected, now some Swedish cities are as dangerous as the hottest spots in Africa and the Middle East. For the last ten years, the once quiet and peaceful country has seen a massive influx of migrants, who have long since stopped feeling like guests in a new country and, once they got used to it, even tried on the role of hosts.
Locals have long been wary of going out in the evening. Swedish TV channel SVT spoke to some residents about this. 24-year-old Saga said:
I avoid going to the shop late at night. If I have to go out at that time, I try to have someone close to me to walk with me.
She can be understood, because young girls most often become victims of robbers and rapists. Today, almost every second Swedish woman between the 16-19 ages feels insecure on the street. But the feeling of fear is also increasingly felt by men – especially in the 45- to 54-year-old group. 35-year-old Eric said:
Sometimes when I come home from work at night there are police helicopters circling around and you don’t know what’s going on.
The news channel Sky News recently made a report on Swedish organised crime. A reporter from the channel spoke to Adam, who infiltrated the underworld at the age of 9, in the suburbs of Uppsala. In the interview, Adam said that you can make good money by fulfilling various orders in the underworld. The boy also added:
If you shoot somebody in the leg, you’ll get 50,000 krona (£ 3,700). Before, if you were going to kill somebody, you got a million [krona] (£ 76,000) – but now the prices are so low that everyone kills. I’m not worried about my own safety, because I’ve eliminated almost everyone. I’ve seen a lot of s*** happen. I’ve seen people getting shot. I’ve seen people die, people getting hurt, mothers crying in despair. I’ve seen almost everything, but there’s nothing you can do about it.
Adam said he has recently earned about 2 million krona (approximately £ 149,000). However, the young criminal entrepreneur admits that his work comes with risks – for example, he and his accomplices recently massacred members of a rival gang that had invaded their territory.
The boys were there and caught them. I know who’s behind it, but they’re done. They’re not here anymore. Me personally, I will never leave. I don’t see myself being in a gang, I see it like I’m in a family.
Sky News also spoke to Jale Poljarevius, chief of intelligence for Sweden’s Mitt region. He showed the reporter an advert for a “job” posted on social media, offering to go to a certain place and kill a certain person wearing a Gucci cap for the relatively small sum of 60,000 krona (£ 4500).
However, Swedish experts are trying to cheer up citizens, because although the murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants has increased over the last decade, the rate of street attacks, robberies and rapes has decreased.
Crime is down, but it’s too early to celebrate
According to official statistics, between 2013 and 2023 the number of murders in Sweden increased by 53%, assaults and rapes decreased by 27%, and the number of street robberies decreased by 39%. However, we should not be happy about these figures, because they mean one thing: Swedish crime is no longer a chaotic formation, but an organised structure, which has begun to be dominated by the drug trade. And the rise in murders is due to the fact that gangs are aggressively dividing up territory, which is still in short supply, and they are forced to start exploring neighbouring countries.
This summer was not only the hottest in terms of temperature, but also in terms of street thuggery – Swedish criminals behaved as brazenly as possible. For example, the media wrote about how on 22 July someone dressed in all black threw a grenade into a shop in the Geneta neighbourhood in the Stockholm suburb of Södertälje. Several bystanders were injured, and one injured woman had to be airlifted to hospital by helicopter in minutes. No sooner had the locals recovered from the shock, than the next day at the same place a man received a gunshot wound.
Such cases are not new here, and every time Swedes remember that they voted two years ago for parties that promised to curb crime. The same parties later brought the current Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to power.
According to statistics, since January 1, 2024, there have already been over one and a half hundred street shootings in Sweden, killing 20 people and injuring 26. In 2023, there were 53 firearm-related deaths in the country. In 2022, there were 62 such homicides. For a country of 10 million people, these are impressive figures.
“Safe zones”
Kristersson’s anti-crime policies include tougher penalties for firearms offences, which have recently resulted in sentences of up to life imprisonment. However, perhaps the most notable initiative in this direction has been the creation of so-called safety zones. The law, which came into force in April, allows police to temporarily designate any area on the country’s map where they believe violence is out of control as a “safety zone.” In these zones, law enforcement officers can now stop and search any resident without justification.
The first “safety zone” was opened in June in the city centre district of Norrköping – after several consecutive incidents of gang attacks on citizens there. The second one was set up in Genet after a resident was shot in the stairwell of an apartment block in early July. The “safety zone” in Genet was in effect for a fortnight – and it was quiet during those days.
Fearing drones and reinforced police units, criminals did not dare to launch new attacks. However, once the strict regime was lifted, police detained two teenagers for hurling a grenade at a shop, then two more were arrested for murder.
Increase in children involved in street crime
Since 2023, the public has been alarmed by the fact that gangs are increasingly involving teenagers and children in their squabbles. Last September, the bodies of two teenagers, 14-year-olds Mohamed and Leith, who had disappeared a few months earlier, were found in a wooded area in the Stockholm suburb of Jordbro. Both had previously come to the attention of law enforcement for misdemeanours. Investigators speculated that the teens were killed because they agreed to become hired hitmen but failed in their task.
Anen Maqbool, an employee of the municipality of Jordbro who specialises in social work with teenagers, explains that gangsters do not need to look for performers in this environment for a long time – the minors themselves are happy to line up. She said:
It is the children who risk becoming the “soldiers” of the criminal environment if the community fails to react in time. Since then, juvenile killers have been labelled “soldiers.”
The fact of belonging to a gang elevates the teenager in his own eyes, gives him a pleasant feeling of his importance, of being a part of the power over the life and death of others. An important role is played by the money that can be earned in a gang, especially for the always moneyless teenagers. Experts also believe that one of the reasons for the growth of child cruelty is the popularisation of violence in the mass media, but most importantly, teenagers should not fear cruel punishment. According to Swedish criminal law, if an adult murderer can get a long term in prison, a teenager who commits the same crime will get three or four years in a correctional boarding school.
Teenagers often film and post special kinds of videos on TikTok, which they hope will play the role of “cover documents,” letters of recommendation for joining a gang. Similar videos are also filmed as proof of order fulfilment.
For example, late last year in Stockholm’s Gubbängen neighbourhood, 14- and 15-year-olds who had run away from boarding school shot up a flat rented by an adult gangster now on the Interpol international wanted list. They fired a pistol and automatic weapons through the window and into the door, filming their actions on video. Police detained and questioned the juvenile offenders. Investigators suspected that the juveniles were members of a criminal network where they acted as liquidators, which was later confirmed.
Young “soldiers” move to Denmark
Recently, “soldiers” from Sweden have also committed murders in neighbouring Denmark. The Danish TV channel TV 2 has published prices for the services of young Swedish killers. In adverts posted on the Internet, young criminals are offered to shoot their victims in the head or throw a hand grenade at them. Prices range from 300,000 to 500,000 Swedish krona (£ 23,000 to £ 37,000). Calling on Stockholm to get tougher on youth crime, Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said:
It is very frightening that Sweden has so many young people acting as perpetrators of such serious offences. I think it is difficult for the vast majority of Danes to accept the fact that there are people who are so depraved in the country on the other side of the Øresund Strait. We will put pressure on Sweden to take responsibility for what is happening.
Sweden’s Sveriges Television reported the other day that the number of cases of minors being used as hitmen has tripled this year compared to last year. At the end of July 2024, ninety-three teenagers were involved in such cases, compared to twenty-six a year ago.
The Swedish Police Department’s operations officer Hannah Parady said that the prices paid by criminals for the heads of their victims are as high as $90,000. The perpetrators are recruited mainly on social networks.
The police believe that in order to stop the Swedish crime wave, it is necessary to cut off the supply channels of illegal firearms. Drugs, guns, grenades – all can be found in 24 hours, Swedish police officers claim. The main channel of illegal weapons comes from the Balkans, but police believe that soon weapons may also flow from other countries, such as Ukraine.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Bill Galston for Head-Post.com
