How Sweden’s multicultural dream went fatally wrong

To amusement maine conscionable however atrocious pack transgression has go successful Sweden, each writer Diamant Salihu has to bash is guardant a fewer mobile telephone messages. At archetypal glance, they look similar spam, written successful garish fonts and promising ample sums of money, determination to beryllium earned. It’s lone connected person introspection that the intent of the pistol and skull emojis becomes clear.

These are alleged “murder ads” – posted online by pack leaders, offering bounties to anyone consenting to transportation retired the hits.

“All types of jobs are available,” reads one, promising up to 1 cardinal krona (£78,000). “Age doesn’t matter”, adds different – explaining wherefore galore of Sweden’s caller declaration killers aren’t hardened hitmen, but children. Part of the problem, immoderate say, is that Swedish instrumentality dictates anyone aged nether 15 is excessively young to beryllium prosecuted.

“We person truthful galore kid soldiers that cipher tin number anymore,” sighs Salihu, an investigative newsman for SVT, Sweden’s reply to the BBC. “There are kids arsenic young arsenic 13 being arrested.”

Barely a week passes successful Sweden contiguous without a teen being arrested for specified a hit, keeping Salihu highly busy, and the nationalist successful the grip of a nationalist situation similar nary different earlier it. A softly-spoken erstwhile tabloid journalist, the 41-year-old could beryllium a quality from a Scandi-noir novel, shining airy successful society’s darker corners. The assemblage number connected his beat, though, is acold higher than immoderate Stieg Larsson novel, and holds retired small imaginable of a satisfactory ending.

For the communicative helium has pursued for the past decennary is, successful effect, 1 giant, unsolved execution mystery: wherefore has Sweden, agelong the envy of the remainder of Europe for its bid and prosperity, abruptly seeing truthful galore gangland killings?

Why, successful a onshore that prides itself connected welcoming migrants, are truthful galore pack members from migrant communities? And is it Swedish nine that is the eventual culprit, oregon the migrant communities themselves?

They are questions helium has already addressed successful 2 best-selling books of reportage, some kicking a hornet’s nest that wide Sweden agelong preferred to permission good alone. His first, Until Everyone Dies, chronicled a warfare betwixt 2 Somali thoroughfare gangs that near 9 young footsoldiers dead.

His latest, When Nobody’s Listening, charts the precocious echelons of Swedish crime, arsenic revealed done the constabulary cracking of Encrochat, the encrypted mobile telephone work utilized by gangsters Europe-wide.

It is published successful translation this period successful Britain – a spot wherever Salihu, himself a migrant of Kosovan stock, archetypal observed cracks successful the multi-cultural exemplary portion moving arsenic a overseas analogous for the Swedish tabloid Expressen.

During the six months helium spent reporting for the paper successful London, helium covered the aftermath of the 2011 riots, successful which gangs played a important role. Two years later, helium recovered himself reporting the aforesaid communicative astatine home, erstwhile riots successful broke retired successful inner-city neighbourhoods crossed Sweden. Interviewing section youths, Salihu heard the modular complaints astir joblessness and alienation, but couldn’t assistance asking himself 1 awkward question.

“In the Swedish areas that person societal problems, I didn’t spot the aforesaid atrocious modular of lodging and people differences that I saw successful the UK,” helium tells maine by Zoom from Sweden. “So why, erstwhile we successful Sweden person a mostly amended modular of living, bash we person this escalation of violence?”

It is simply a question that the remainder of Sweden’s 10 cardinal citizens are present asking too, successful the aftermath of a decade-long surge of unit that peaked astatine 62 deadly shootings successful 2022. That was doubly the fig for England and Wales, which person six times the population, and ranked Sweden 2nd lone to Albania that twelvemonth for weapon deaths per capita successful Europe.

Ageing biker clans that were erstwhile Sweden’s best-known thoroughfare gangs person been supplanted by taste mafias from the Balkans and Middle East – astir notably the Kurdish-led Foxtrot group, which looms ample successful Salihu’s caller book. Foxtrot is salient successful Sweden’s cause trade, though overmuch of its enactment mightiness much aptly beryllium termed “disorganised crime”. It pioneered the online bounty system, lending retired guns and grenades to immoderate teen seeking to marque a name. With constabulary struggling to support up, adjacent tiny provincial towns person witnessed shootings and bombings.

Gang kingpins, meanwhile, are eulogised by rappers and alleged “gangfluencers”, a word that made the Swedish Language Council’s database of caller words backmost successful 2021. As Ulf Kristersson, the country’s centre-Right premier minister, laments: “Sweden has ne'er seen thing similar it before.”

Nor, Salihu adds, is it conscionable youngsters from migrant “ghettoes” claiming the bounties. “We besides present spot Swedish kids progressive – immoderate from breached backgrounds, but immoderate whose parents are successful. All they’ve possibly done earlier is bargain thing oregon play truant, present they’re getting progressive successful murder.”

A video obtained by The Telegraph precocious past twelvemonth showed what appeared to beryllium a 14-year-old assassin carrying retired a declaration sidesplitting for a narcotics gang. The footage shows the teen, equipped with a Kalashnikov rifle, firing a spray of bullets towards the beforehand doorway of a spot wrong an flat block. It was said to person been filmed to beryllium the sidesplitting was carried out.

So what has gone wrong? Part of the blame, Salihu says, is down to the societal blights communal to astir of Europe’s much impoverished multi-racial neighbourhoods. Joblessness and favoritism bounds galore youngsters’ consciousness of prospects. TV pack dramas, meanwhile, often “highlight the flashy parts of pack beingness – money, respect, powerfulness – but permission retired the trauma, manipulation, and tragic consequences.”

Yet the consciousness of nonaccomplishment is each the much acute successful Sweden, agelong an unfastened doorway compared to different European nations. Ever since the 1960s, erstwhile it archetypal styled itself arsenic a humanitarian superpower, it has taken successful those fleeing occupation abroad, beryllium it Americans fleeing the Vietnam warfare draft, Soviet dissidents, oregon Iraqis fleeing Saddam Hussein’s regime. In the 1990s came refugees from the Balkans, and successful the past decennary asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa person arrived. Anxious not to make “parallel societies”, Swedish governments person agelong funded societal integration programmes alongside the waves of migration.

But parallel societies person sprung up regardless, according to Salihu, who lived until the property of 8 connected his family’s workplace successful Kosovo, wherever adjacent cars were a luxury.

“We had a equine and cart, similar successful the Borat movies,” helium says. The household fled up of the warfare with Serbia successful 1998, which saw their location burned down, settling successful a provincial municipality successful cardinal Sweden.

“I retrieve my parent breaking down successful tears erstwhile she learned that her member had been killed portion warring successful the war,” Salihu recalls. “I’ve ever felt that if I’d stayed successful Kosovo, I mightiness not beryllium live today.”

Even backmost then, astir 20 per cent of his caller Swedish classmates were migrants similar him. But helium besides mixed with kids whose parents had assemblage educations and 2nd homes – a imaginativeness of the Swedish imagination to aspire to. Today, helium says, his aged neighbourhood nary longer adjacent glimpses that dream.

“I went backmost determination successful 2014 arsenic a journalist, and fundamentally each kid successful the schoolhouse was present from a migrant background,” helium says. “That makes it harder for them to larn Swedish properly, and they won’t spot what I saw arsenic a child. Society has go overmuch much segregated. Swedes invited radical from each country of the world, but don’t really privation to unrecorded with them arsenic neighbours.”

Salihu doesn’t blasted it each connected racism, however. In his caller book, for example, helium writes of gang-plagued areas wherever azygous mothers are often raising 8 children alone. Many pack members helium interviews, meanwhile, don’t blasted nine oregon their parents, but “actively take their lifestyle”.

“They’ve had each the opportunities, with siblings who’ve graduated and got bully jobs, yet inactive they’ve chosen the atrocious path.”

The “bad path”, unfortunately, is unfastened to anyone who chooses to reply a execution ad. Recruits are sometimes directed to their targets via unrecorded smart-phone feeds, and past ordered to movie their handiwork. Last December, a slayer utilizing Go Pro footage filmed himself gunning down a Syrian-born rapper, Ninos Khouri, successful a multi-storey car-park.

Gang leaders besides cultivate cult presences connected societal media, their followers often taking objection to less-than-flattering sum by journalists similar Salihu. When 1 erstwhile Foxtrot affiliate, Mustapha al-Jubouri, broadcast a video revealing helium had faked his ain decease – waving a aureate Kalashnikov astir to beryllium helium was inactive live – his acolytes singled retired Salihu for disapproval connected a unrecorded Instagram feed. “It was being watched by 20,000 people,” says Salihu, who keeps his location code secret. “How could Instagram not bash thing astir that, knowing what benignant of radical are involved, inciting execution and threatening journalists?”

Sweden’s pack menace is besides spreading overseas, including to Britain. In 2022, Anis Hemissi, a kickboxer of Tunisian descent, was jailed successful the UK for murdering Flamur Beqiri, a Swedish-Albanian cause kingpin gunned down extracurricular his location successful Battersea.

Swedish constabulary are besides hunting a 25-year-old gangster suspected of murdering 2 British question agents, Juan Cifuentes and Farooq Abdulrazak, changeable dormant during a concern travel to the metropolis of Malmö past July. Their families importune they had nary pack connections.

To complicate matters, galore gangsters besides person bolt-holes successful the Middle East, wherever household connections sometimes shield them from arrest. Al-Jubouri issued his “comeback” video from Iraq, portion Foxtrot’s leader, Rawa “The Fox” Majid, fled to Turkey six years ago, taking citizenship to debar extradition. He reportedly owned a luxury level successful Istanbul, from wherever helium continued to wage pack feuds remotely earlier past seemingly fleeing to Iran.

With the far-Right, anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats present attracting 1 successful 5 of Swedish voters, the authorities has been trying to propulsion backmost connected the pack problem. Jail presumption person been accrued importantly for juveniles, who utilized to get distant with arsenic small arsenic 3 years’ custody for murder.

Thanks to the cracking of Encrochat – which fto constabulary forces each implicit Europe eavesdrop connected gangsters’ plans – astir 400 Swedish criminals person been jailed.

Swedish politicians are besides calling for curbs connected societal media usage to halt the “murder ads” – thing Salihu warns could besides dispersed to the UK. “You excessively whitethorn extremity up with British kid soldiers, conscionable arsenic we are facing this situation successful Sweden,” helium says. He points retired that portion Britain’s tougher firearms laws mean shootings are little frequent, weapon transgression is astir arsenic bad: successful the 12 months to March 2024, 57 under-25s died successful stabbings, 17 of them nether 16.

But portion Sweden’s weapon killings person present dipped – past twelvemonth saw 45 – Salihu fears the underlying origin for the unit continues to lurk. He besides points retired that the pack footsoldiers are present attracting acold much unsafe paymasters than communal criminals. A twelvemonth ago, Swedish officials accused Iran of recruiting section pack members for attacks connected Israeli interests successful Europe, including Israel’s Stockholm Embassy, wherever a unrecorded grenade was recovered successful the grounds.

Last month, Washington sanctioned the Foxtrot web implicit the attacks, saying The Fox had “specifically cooperated” with Tehran. With that successful mind, Salihu fears it whitethorn 1 time not conscionable beryllium gangsters who unrecorded successful fearfulness of being targeted by “murder ads”.

“If we let these criminals to go much powerful, I fearfulness that our antiauthoritarian institutions volition travel nether pressure, beryllium it prosecutors, oregon journalists – I myself would consciousness overmuch much afraid,” Salihu adds. “These guys are predators. You person to basal up to them, not backmost off.”

When Nobody’s Listening: Inside Sweden’s Drug Gangs, is published by Polity Press, and disposable for acquisition (£25.00) from April 18

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