Five Swedes have been detained on suspicion of crimes in Denmark in the past week.
Now Norwegian and Danish police want to deepen the cooperation with Sweden.
– It is not an understatement of the Swedish police, I want to underline that, but it is an understatement of Swedish society’s inability to deal with social problems in time, says Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer in Efter fem.
Criminal Danes hire young Swedes to commit crimes. They are recruited through social media and are assigned to commit crimes in Denmark for payment.
Since last spring, several Swedes have been recruited in this way. The crimes vary from bombings to attempted murders, and within a week five Swedes have been arrested on suspicion of crimes in the neighboring country.
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Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer (M) stresses the importance of cooperation.
– We have a very strong common interest in, if we are now talking about these concrete cases, to stop the recruitment of children and young people in Sweden. This recruitment that we are now talking about, it is done by Danish criminal networks. It can be a network with connections to other countries, possibly also to Sweden. But basically it’s about crime in Denmark, he says in Efter fem.
“Sweden must clean up its mess”
Denmark’s Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard (S) now believes that “Sweden must clean up its mess”. Gunnar Strömmer agrees with the criticism but also believes that there are many positive examples that the government has done and that the trend should be reversed.
– When our own criminal networks expand and try to compete for the market in other countries and when Danish networks try to recruit in Sweden, then it becomes very concrete, he says.
Danish police help Sweden
After recent events, both Norway and Denmark now want to deepen cooperation with Sweden. Among other things, Norwegian police want to patrol together with Swedish police. This is something the Minister of Justice does not see as something negative or a failure.
– It is not an understatement of the Swedish police, I want to underline that, but it is an understatement of Swedish society’s inability to deal with social problems in time. Now we are in a situation where these social problems cross borders. We have a strong interest in cooperating closely with our Nordic neighboring countries, we do so to a very high degree, but now we are strengthening it further in both directions, he says.
Will we have Norwegian and Danish police on Swedish streets?
– We already have Danish police inside Swedish police and Swedish police will be placed in Denmark so that we can share information in real time and interact across borders.