The arrest took place in Istanbul on Saturday evening, writes Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya on X, formerly Twitter. According to the minister, the man allegedly applied for and received Turkish citizenship via a fake Bulgarian passport, but when this came to light, he lost his Turkish citizenship.
Swedish police cannot currently confirm Turkey’s information that the man has been arrested.
– We are currently working on obtaining more information about this, says Iréne Sokolow, press spokesperson at the police’s national media centre.
UD: Not known
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently not aware that any Swedish citizen has been detained in Turkey in recent days, says the ministry in a comment to TT. Deprivations of liberty abroad do not, however, have to become matters for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The country in which the deprivation of liberty has taken place only needs to inform the embassy or consulate if the person deprived of liberty himself wishes to do so.
The man is in custody in Sweden in absentia on suspicion of extremely serious drug smuggling and extremely serious drug crime, according to The Express. Since last summer, he has been wanted in Sweden, by Interpol and by the USA. The US State Department then offered around SEK 54 million for tips that could contribute to the man’s arrest, the newspaper writes.
Sold cell phones to criminals
In the United States, the man is suspected of having been a leading administrator and enabler of serious organized crime through the FBI’s own chat service Anom. The FBI had developed the service to trick criminals into using it and thus be able to spy on them. That the FBI was behind the service was revealed in 2021.
The Swede was tricked by the FBI and sold phones with Anom installed to several criminal gangs. American and Swedish police could then follow the Anom chats and in Sweden this could lead to more than a hundred people being arrested.