Chief of Police: The police are being infiltrated by gang criminals

Daniel Larsson, who works to fight organized crime in the Mitt region, says that they receive signals that gang criminals are trying to infiltrate the police.

– We must not be naive here. Clearly there are interests in the criminal gangs to infiltrate us and survey us and see what we know about them. Within the police, we have 34,000 employees, the gangs have 30,000. It is clear that they want to see what we do and what we can do, he says.

“Can be placed in strategic locations”

The authority has long been aware that there are people from outside who are interested in them. But in the past there has been more talk about foreign power, he says.

– What has happened recently is that the criminal gangs have become more and more established and acquired more and more enablers. And they can be placed in more strategic places within Swedish administration. It can be municipalities, the Swedish Tax Agency and of course also the police.

Information that they want to access can be personal data for specific police officers, how the work with a preliminary investigation goes or which methods they use in, for example, reconnaissance work.

– I don’t know how much they are on the inside, but we are getting signals that they are trying. How much damage it does depends on which person they have managed to approach, what security classification that person has and what information they have access to.

The staff is scanned regularly

The police authority has a system where both employees and police school students are regularly checked. You get a protection rating that determines how much damage they could do, and if a person gets a higher protection rating than 3, they are removed from service.

– You are interviewed and there you look at reliability, loyalty and vulnerability and then you get a rating. If you don’t pass the classification, you won’t be approved, and that happens from time to time, says Daniel Larsson.

It could, for example, be about having a lifestyle that makes you more vulnerable to blackmail, such as poor finances or an alcohol or gambling addiction.

“Not worried”

Despite the preventive work, it can still happen that information leaks, says Daniel Larsson.

– It is not so serious that it becomes irreparable, but it can happen that a special preliminary investigation, for example, is shelved because it has been leaked that a crackdown is coming. It can be messed up and it’s serious enough.

– Should information begin to leak, we will take it. Because you leave digital traces.

Daniel Larsson says that all police officers are aware of this and that they keep the sensitive information in a small sphere.

– I am not worried, but we must not relax. We have to work on this all the time.