Less than a month ago, the Danish government announced an unusual step: an immediate increase in police checks on the many trains that travel frequently on the bridge and tunnel that pass over and under the Orsund Straits, and actually connect Malmö to Copenhagen. The reason is an unprecedented wave of acts and attempted murders as part of a gang war in Sweden, and a new trend in which Danish criminal organizations “hire” Swedish assassins – mostly boys – to settle scores between them. The organized violence that has prevailed in Sweden in recent years, fears in Denmark, threatens in recent weeks to establish itself in the Kingdom as well.
The gang war in Sweden is a phenomenon that has sharply worsened in the country in recent years, and damages the peaceful image of the Scandinavian country. Criminal gangs, some with local roots, some operated by families and clans from the Middle East or the Balkans, have in recent years escalated the fight between them over the drug trade, and also over the arms trade designed to arm them and strengthen them against each other. Some of the leaders of these gangs no longer live in Sweden, for fear of arrest, and have found refuge in Turkey or Serbia, but they operate networks from afar that are fed, among other things, by the relatively large new layer of immigrants that has arrived in the country in recent years.
In the last year, several centers stand out as the most burning, especially Uppsala and Södertalia near Stockholm, as well as the Swedish capital itself. Cases of murder by shootings and bombs planted in vehicles or in public places to eliminate members of rival gangs proliferated, and media attention to them increased. More than 53 gang-related murders occurred in Sweden last year, and 140 IED explosions, which are mostly carried out as a “warning”. Innocents are also killed: in September of last year, two pub occupants, a 70-year-old and a 20-year-old, were killed in an explosion aimed at a figure known to the police. A 24-year-old teacher died that month as a result of a bomb intended to eliminate a relative of hers.
In fact, in about a decade, Sweden went from being one of the safest countries in terms of shooting deaths, to the one that stands at the top of the list by a wide margin – 5.5 murders per million inhabitants were recorded there last year, compared to only 0.5 in Germany, for example. The number of deaths and attempted murders (363 last year, almost one a day) has tripled in the past decade. So far this year, nearly 150 shootings have been recorded.
Police at the scene of an explosion in southern Stockholm, Sweden. The suspicion is that the explosion was aimed at a member of the Foxtrot crime gang / Photo: Reuters, Stella Pictures
Recruited on Telegram
Experts told the country’s media that 13- and 14-year-old youths are “lured” by gang members in Sweden to commit murders through social networks, and through promises of easy money and status symbols. This is done when the gangs gradually move from mutual killings of only friends, to revenge and killing family members, according to the experts. The cost of murder is between 25 and 75 thousand euros, and many of the young people are recruited through “Telegram”.
After last year’s significant wave, Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Kristerson appeared before the public and accused that “irresponsible immigration policy and failed integration” are responsible for the increasing crime. “Sweden has never seen such a phenomenon, and no other country in Europe has seen such a phenomenon,” he said, blaming the immigration policies of past governments.
Until recently, Sweden was one of the European countries that opened its doors most generously to asylum seekers, many of them from the Middle East or Asia. Although issues of immigration and integration have been in the media for decades, the country continued this policy until recently, when a new government supported by the anti-immigration right came to power about two years ago. According to estimates, more than one million people entered Sweden in the last decade. This is a large rate in a country with only about 10 million inhabitants.
Whether the various political camps justify opening the borders to asylum seekers in the name of humanitarian values or due to the need for working hands in the future, or whether they oppose it, there are not many questions regarding the failure of integration. Dropping out of schools, crime, drugs and gang membership are some of the characteristics of life in the immigrant housing that has sprung up in big cities in Sweden.
One of the most significant gangs, Foxtrot, is led by the so-called “Kurdish Fox”, a former Iranian citizen named Rawa Majid who immigrated to the country, then fled to Turkey to avoid arrest. Another gang, called Rumba, is also run from Turkey by Ismail Abdu, and a third gang is apparently run from the Swedish prison itself, by Michael Tanzos, known as “The Greek”.
The danger to Denmark
Currently, the wave of violence that peaked about a year ago shows no significant signs of abating, and now threatens to spread to Sweden’s neighbors. Denmark, unlike Sweden, has consistently closed its borders to illegal immigrants and asylum seekers for at least two decades, with strict laws preventing even staying in the country after early marriage, checks at the border with Germany, withholding welfare payments and even requiring asylum seekers to use their savings to finance their reception, if they have any.
Denmark has been excluded from the EU’s unified immigration policy, which allows it to set stricter regulations on its own. But entering Sweden is not a problem, and Malmö serves as a “sleepy suburb” of Copenhagen – many of those who were unable to immigrate to Denmark because of the strict laws live in nearby Malmö, and the city has the highest proportion of Muslims in Sweden. Now, the gang war threatens to spread to Denmark. In the last four months, the Danish authorities reported on 25 cases in which Danish gangs who “hired” Swedish assassins to “commit violent crimes in the capital of Denmark” were foiled.
According to Danish Minister of Justice Peter Humelgaard, “This is a serious crisis and we will support police activity aimed at resolving the situation.” The minister did not mince words regarding responsibility for the phenomenon, saying that it is “a result of the failure of integration and the policy of law and order in Sweden”.
As part of the newly announced cooperation, the two countries will also work to worldwide arrest gang leaders and bring them to justice, as well as send a Swedish task force to Denmark and share intelligence. Sweden has also independently announced that it will intensify the fight against gangs. The Swedish justice system has so far been considered “lenient” towards minors, under the age of 18, which has made them an ideal target for recruitment to commit crimes, including murder.
In a case solved last year, which involved two explosions in Stockholm, a 25-year-old who was involved in them was sentenced to five years in prison, while two 17-year-old minors were placed in foster homes for only a few months. “It’s scary that people can be so evil as to take advantage of children and young people,” said the Danish justice minister.
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