The first bombing occurred at 4:05 a.m. on March 19. The explosive charge detonated outside a gate to an apartment building in Åkersberga.
According to the police, the explosion was powerful and caused extensive damage to the property, including the complete destruction of the staircase. A dark-clad person on an electric scooter was seen fleeing the scene after the crime, which is being investigated as public-dangerous destruction.
Barely two weeks later, at 4:46 a.m. on March 30, residents in Åkersberga were once again awakened by a violent explosion.
A gate to a multi-storey building had been blown away, causing great devastation at the address. 45 homes had their windows shattered by the pressure wave. According to information to TV4 Nyheterna, batteries are believed to have been used to trigger the bomb.
No one has yet been arrested on suspicion of the explosions, but TV4 Nyheterna can now say that the police are investigating the connection between the crime and see that a new conflict has flared up in the urban area.
Local drug war: “Who will have the market shares?”
TV4 News sources with insight into the criminal environment in Åkersberga describe the recent unrest as a local conflict.
– It’s about local individuals in Åkersberga who got together, says an informant.
Stefan Dahlgren, a long-time municipal police officer, has the same view of the conflict situation and states that it is believed to be about who will sell drugs locally in the area and control the trade.
– We have our inkling that there is some kind of conflict over the drug market. A conflict around drug handling. That is the basis for everything that is happening now. “Who will have the market shares?”, “who will make the most money from the drugs?”, says Stefan Dahlgren.
– We believe that it is moving in that direction. But we are still working extensively with information gathering and tips about these events to be able to say that it is 100 percent so.
The police: There are no gangs or networks in Åkersberga
Stefan Dahlgren states that there are no criminal gangs in Åkersberga. But it is about local people who act in the urban area on behalf of larger networks from other parts of Stockholm and Sweden.
– We have no pronounced networks based on the definition of Noa (the police’s national operational department). There are individual actors who have loyalties with other criminals or who have connections to networks.
The police are now working to break up the conflict and prevent it from escalating.
– We work both visibly and covertly in the municipality. Right now we are trying to be in the central parts and try to intercept witnesses who come and want to talk to us. Then, in terms of intelligence, we try to put the puzzle together on the information that we possibly get, says Stefan Dahlgren.
Is there a lot of concern among the municipal residents?
– Yes, of course they have a big concern. It’s not so funny when they blow away the front door to the big apartment building. You never know what will happen next. So of course the citizens feel that it is not funny that it is like this.
– The big problem from our side is that we can’t say “you don’t have to worry”. Because we don’t know that it won’t explode tomorrow. These are not common occurrences in Åkersberga and these cases are rare if you work it out over time. Now, unfortunately, there have been two within the space of a week or so.
Criminal networks recruit young people in the municipality
The municipal police say that people with connections to criminal networks, outside Åkersberga, have recently come to the area to recruit young people to commit serious crimes linked to the bloody wave of violence that shook Sweden. Something that Stefan Dahlgren had not previously seen in the urban area, even though he had been a police officer in Roslagen for 35 years and a municipal police officer for nine years.
– We have ruled out some who were on their way to being executors in the major conflicts. Utilization decreases with age. Plus, the networks have seen that “well, it’s good to use really young people because they don’t get punished”, says Stefan Dahlgren.
– It doesn’t just affect the vulnerable areas, it also finds its way into the regular suburbs where you go and recruit from the big networks. It’s something new that hasn’t been there before.