Last year, 53 people were killed in shootings, including innocent victims, in this country of 10.5 million inhabitants.
“Crimefluencers”
The organization of gangs in Sweden has become more complex: gang leaders operate from abroad through intermediaries who recruit, via encrypted messaging, adolescents under the age of 15, the age of criminal responsibility.
“It is organized into a sort of market where missions are published on discussion forums, and where the performers are younger and younger.“, underlined the head of the national police Johan Olsson during a press conference in early October.
There are also crime influencers, such as “crimefluencers” on TikTok, who, beyond showing off their criminal life, facilitate contacts between order givers and hitmen, explains Sven Granath, professor of criminology at Stockholm University.
Between January and August 2023 and this same period in 2024, the number of cases in which children under the age of 15 are suspected of murder, attempted murder and preparation for murder increased from 31 to 102, according to figures from the prosecution. .
These young people often have difficulties at school, attention problems, addiction problems or have already had trouble with the law, explains the professor.
“They are recruited into conflicts with which they have no connection, as mercenaries” and without necessarily having been a member of a gang before, he emphasizes.
Children sometimes request such missions, shows a report from the National Crime Prevention Council (Bra).
“Today, everyone wants to become a murderer. It’s incredibly sad to see that this is what young people (in these circles) aspire to.“, says Viktor Grewe, 25, a former criminal. He himself came into contact with the police for the first time at the age of 13.
“Ruthless exploitation”
Young people glorify the criminal life, widely disseminated on TikTok, he says.
Adrenaline rush, feeling of belonging, juicy remuneration: their motivations are multiple.
For Tony Quiroga, a police officer met in Örebro, a town located 200 km west of Stockholm, it is a “ruthless exploitation of young people just starting out in life“.
Gang leaders and middlemen”don’t want to risk anything. They hide behind pseudonyms on social networks and erect several filters between themselves” and these young hitmen, he said.
In Sweden, children under the age of 15 cannot be criminally convicted. Their care falls to social services.
In Örebro, volunteers travel through sensitive suburbs in the evening to alert young people of the risk of falling under the control of gangs.
Viktor Grewe, who decided to give up crime at the age of 22, explains that these young people do not believe in the future, convinced that they will not live beyond the age of 25.
According to Bra’s report, recruitment responds to corporate logic. To rise in the hierarchy of a criminal network, 15-year-olds must have their own “small“.
To attract them, they display camaraderie, branded clothing and promises of rewards, with unfailing loyalty as their leitmotif.
The little one will first be used to deliver a bag, before gradually leading it towards more serious tasks, underlines the report.
Result: the police find themselves facing conflicts”that never end“, sighs Mr. Quiroga.
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