In this case, four men aged 18 to 20 are accused of recruiting four children aged 11 to 17 for a gang. All were arrested before taking action.
The preliminary report is peppered with screenshots of young teenagers sending each other “snaps” with handguns, some shirtless, others hooded.
When questioned by police, the child admitted to writing the message to appear “cool” and “not to show fear.”
His case is not isolated.
Sweden has been struggling for several years to stem violence between gangs vying for control of drug trafficking through shootings and attacks with homemade explosive devices.
Last year, 53 people were killed in shootings, including innocent victims, in this country of 10.5 million inhabitants.
Minor killers: the societal emergency
“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 as a sort of market where missions are published on discussion forums, and where the performers are younger and younger,” national police chief Johan Olsson underlined during a press conference. early October.
There are also crime influencers, like “crimefluencers” on TikTok, who, beyond showing off their criminal life, facilitate contacts between order givers and hitmen, explains to AFP Sven Granath, professor in 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 in 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,” Viktor Grewe, 25, a former criminal, told AFP. He himself came into contact with the police for the first time at the age of 13.
“The delinquency figures have not exploded. It is the violence that is harsher, as if these children were living in a video game”
“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 by AFP in Örebro, a town 200 km west of Stockholm, it is a “ruthless exploitation of young people who are just starting their lives”.
Gang leaders and intermediaries “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-old teenagers must have their own “little ones”.
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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