Experts Say Gang Violence in Sweden Has Been a Decades-Long Crisis in the Making

March 22, 2025 TruthUSA

Magnus Lindgren, a former police chief general secretary of the Safer Sweden Foundation, stated that there are 15,000 ‘very dangerous criminals’ in Sweden.

News Analysis

On March 12, sanctions were imposed on Rawa Majid, a Swedish gangster known as The Kurdish Fox, by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Majid, 38, who was born in Iran, is the leader of the so-called Foxtrot Network, one of the most powerful organized crime gangs in Sweden.

OFAC stated that the gang trafficked illegal drugs and carried out attacks on Israelis and Jews in Europe on behalf of the Iranian government.

The day before on March 11, Sweden’s security service, the Sakerhetspolisen or Sapo, published a report that included a stark warning: “Sweden is experiencing a serious security situation, and there is a substantial risk that this situation could deteriorate.”

Reasons for the rise of criminals like The Kurdish Fox in Sweden and the increase in violent crime, including bombings and shootings, have been questioned.

Magnus Lindgren, a former police chief in Uppsala county and general secretary of the Safer Sweden Foundation, informed The Epoch Times that there are approximately 15,000 “very dangerous criminals” in Sweden. These criminals are evenly split between biker gangs, football hooligans, and criminals from about 60 high-crime neighborhoods.

In a recent report on the crime problem, the Safer Sweden Foundation mentioned: “Ultimately, the situation is self-inflicted, with a number of causes or ‘tipping points’ over the last 50 years that have contributed to today’s serious situation.”

The report indicated that the law in Sweden had not kept pace with social developments.

“Criminal policy has long been characterized by ideals of humanism, which originate from the 1970s, with the view that it is society’s fault if crime is committed, not the individual’s,” the report stated.

“As a consequence, treatment has come before punishment, and non-custodial sanctions before imprisonment.”

Aron Flam, an author and satirist, highlighted that Sweden had experienced “32 bomb attacks in January alone, 16 killings by guns.”

“That’s quite a lot. It’s one every second day,” he informed The Epoch Times.

In January 2025, Aftonbladet reported that Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson mentioned in a press conference: “Sweden is in the midst of a new wave of violence. It’s abundantly clear that we do not have control over this wave of violence; otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”

Flam used the boiling frog analogy to describe the situation.

“The water here is boiling, and the frogs are like, oh it’s nice, it’s warm, it’s getting warmer. But, you know, it’s still not scalding. That will continue until you know the water is boiling over,” he said.

He indicated that people returning to Sweden after several years “do not recognize it.”

Teenage Hitmen and ‘Way Too Lax’ Laws

Hugo Kaaman, a researcher monitoring Sweden’s gang violence, mentioned that organized crime in Sweden was “out of control.” He noted that young teenagers were anonymously hired for murders and other crimes.

“Most of the people ordering hits are hiding abroad and actively advertise the opportunity to kill someone on social media for $5,000–$20,000, and there’s even young kids willing to do it for free, just for the clout,” Kaaman explained.

Kaaman stated, “Police chiefs like to make a big deal out of saying ‘we stemmed the violence’ as soon as intense periods calm down, but it never lasts. The justice system doesn’t sentence enough, and the sentencing guidelines are way too lax.”

He remarked that there were too few police officers and that they were “being actively infiltrated by gangs.”

Crime was a major issue in the 2022 election in Sweden, which resulted in the Social Democrat Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson leaving office.

In May 2022, three young men were shot dead in eight days in a small neighborhood in the town of Orebro.

It was one of the 60 neighborhoods in Sweden with large immigrant communities listed by police as risk areas for rising gang violence.

In June 2022, the right-wing, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats had tabled a vote of no confidence in the then-Justice Minister Morgan Johansson.

Johansson’s stance, as mentioned by Flam, was that the shootings were “okay because they don’t shoot anyone who’s not a gangster.”

“Basically, that was his argument not to do anything about them. But a few years after he said that, two people got hit on a playground,” Flam stated.

He was referring to an August 2022 shooting in a playground in Eskilstuna, a small town near Stockholm, where a mother and her 5-year-old son were injured.

As recently as 1986, Sweden was considered so free of crime and terrorism that Prime Minister Olof Palme would stroll through downtown Stockholm without a security detail.

He was then assassinated, in a crime that remains unsolved.

How has Sweden ended up like this?

Immigration

Many on the left mentioned that poverty and other issues within immigrant communities led to crimes.

Lindgren disagreed with such an interpretation, calling it insulting to the residents.

“It’s a huge insult for all the other people living there to make this a question about poverty,” he insisted.

“Ninety percent of the people living there are good people and want exactly the same as you and me,” he added.

Flam, who is Jewish, shared his experience of growing up in a “sleepy suburb” of Stockholm with many Serbian and Bosnian immigrants. He highlighted a shift in the immigration pattern in the late 1980s and early 1990s when more North Africans and Arabs arrived, displaying negative feelings towards Jews.

In the mid-1980s, approximately 600,000 immigrants per year arrived in Sweden.

That number escalated, and by 2015, around 1.6 million were arriving every year, mainly from countries like Syria, Somalia, and Eritrea, until recently. Last July, the Swedish government announced that the country had negative net migration for the first time in half a century and was on track to have the lowest number of asylum seekers since 1997.

Many immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s have faced challenges in integration or have been drawn into organized crime.

Majid, of Iraqi Kurdish origin, born in Iran and raised in Uppsala, is part of these waves of immigrants. He left Sweden in 2018 after establishing the Foxtrot Network and relocated to Turkey while maintaining close ties with the Iranian government.

OFAC reported that the Foxtrot Network orchestrated an attack on the Israeli embassy in Stockholm in January 2024 on behalf of Iran.

Iran is suspected of using criminals, including Majid’s Foxtrot Network, to target prominent Swedish Jews like activist Saskia Pantell and Aron Verständig.

On Jan. 29 this year, Salwan Momika, a critic of Islam who publicly burned the Quran, was shot dead in Sodertalje, a suburb of Stockholm, while live streaming on TikTok.

Iran and Majid’s Foxtrot Network are under scrutiny for the murder. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson expressed concerns about foreign connections to the incident.

Kaaman noted that Foxtrot operates as a smuggling and distribution network with direct links to smaller gangs in the cities where they operate.

“They make an alliance, that smaller gang gets protection and makes money while they defend ‘Fox’ territory and might target other gangs or act as a proxy for Iran, as in the case of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm,” he explained.

Foxtrot versus Rumba

Majid’s rival in the Swedish underworld is Ismail Abdo, known as Strawberry for his money laundering activities at roadside fruit stalls. His drug gang network is referred to as Rumba.

In September 2023, Majid allegedly arranged for a hitman to kill Abdo’s mother in Uppsala. Abdo was reportedly captured in Adana last year based on an Interpol red notice before being released on bail.

Several high-profile rappers’ murders in Sweden reflect a thriving rap culture often connected to criminal activities.

In October 2021, rapper Nils Kurt Erik Einar Gronberg, also known as Einar, was shot dead in a Stockholm suburb. Einar’s song lyrics frequently mentioned crime, drugs, and weapons.

In June 2024, rapper Karar Ali Salem Ramadan, also known as C. Gambino, was shot dead in a Gothenburg parking garage.

Most dramatically, in December 2024, rapper Gaboro, real name Ninos Khouri, was livestreamed being shot dead in Norrkoping.