Published: Less than 20 min ago
The wave of violence against Stockholm has claimed lives, destroyed buildings, and forced desperate relatives to flee. On average, there has been an explosion or shooting more than every other day in the last three months.
At the same time, the police have made more seizures than in a long time and a record number are in custody.
– This has become such a big social problem that we will have it over time, says Niclas Andersson, operationally responsible for the special event “Frank”.
It started with a fatal shooting on Christmas Day.
A 27-year-old designated member of the Death Squad was not wearing a life jacket that particular day. He, who lived under threat for a long time, including for his suspected involvement in Einár’s death, had celebrated Christmas with his relatives and had the garden down.
But masked perpetrators were waiting outside the house in Rinkeby – the 27-year-old was shot to death on the way to his car.
The murder was the starting point for the wave of violence of unprecedented proportions that has since swept over Stockholm.
It is about several conflicts that flared up simultaneously within and between Stockholm’s 52 criminal networks.
Older criminals are tired
Doors have been blown. Houses with children in them have been shelled. Gang criminals have died and people who resembled a gang criminal have been shot.
And relatives – who have now seen themselves as a new target in the conflicts – have been murdered.
Aftonbladet’s compilation shows that since December 25, through March 27, 55 shootings and explosions have hit Region Stockholm.
– I have been a police officer for 30 years and have never experienced such a burden from so many serious violent crimes. It has been incredibly exhausting, says Niclas Andersson, operationally responsible for the special incident “Frank” at the Stockholm Police.
Not only the police feel the new, more violent situation. Even network criminals themselves.
– We see several criminal networks, mainly with slightly older actors, who do not want to be part of this. They no longer avenge wrongs in the same way as before, but try to negotiate or buy their way out of it instead, so as not to risk being drawn into the spiral we have seen now. Maybe they are fathers and don’t want to risk being shot by a hired 14-year-old, says Niclas Andersson.
Prevented multiple murders
One reason for the escalation, Andersson believes, is that the brains in the warring networks are in countries other than Sweden.
– In this way, they drive this development with relatively little risk for their own part. They do not take into account the consequences, but have decided to emerge victorious from the conflict at any cost.
On January 20, after 21 acts of violence had shaken Stockholm, the Special Incident SH Frank was given an operational focus to deal with the situation.
Police officers from other regions were borrowed and the Stockholm police worked overtime.
Although the shootings and bombings continued on an apparently unabated scale, at the same time the police began to make several arrests and seizures.
Until March 27 this year, within the framework of operation “Frank”, the following seizures have been made:
– We have also been able to prevent a number of murders recently precisely because we were able to predict who will kill and who will fall victim. In some cases we have moved the victim before the murder, in other cases we have managed to stop the perpetrators with weapons in hand before the crime, says Niclas Andersson.
Murder of relatives
Right now, 452 people are in custody, a record high number.
That so many within the network criminal environment are deprived of their liberty is in many ways positive.
But the fact that so many people who are prepared to kill are incarcerated means at the same time that the trend that the police have seen for a long time, that the gangs are recruiting younger and younger members, sometimes even children, is increasing.
– Most of the time, the new recruits are known to us, but not for this serious crime, when they suddenly stand with weapons in hand. It is an escalation and a cynical use of young guys. The gang just exploits them and doesn’t care about their welfare at all. The young guys, on the other hand, think they will have a criminal career with money and status, but usually they just end up locked up or dead.
In March, the police went out on a television program with a request for a 25-year-old man. He is on the run, suspected of having shot at a villa in the Uppsala region together with another.
In the villa lived relatives of Rawa Majid, the so-called Kurdish fox, who, according to the police, is one of the driving parties in a bloody conflict to which several of the violent crimes can be connected.
Three hours after the program is broadcast, there is a knock on a door in Tullinge. A man opens the door, he is the father of the 25-year-old. He is shot dead.
The crime is believed to be the first murder that is directly aimed at relatives – when those seeking revenge cannot reach the intended target directly.
That third parties and relatives are in some way affected by this type of violence has become more common.
When a large explosive charge detonated in Hässelby on March 16, not only one terraced house was completely destroyed – around 50 others were damaged. Residents have told how they have to hold the houses together with duct tape.
A war that cannot be won
But relatives becoming direct targets is something new for Sweden.
– Boundaries that were previously taboo have been crossed. To a certain extent, it depends a lot on the fact that those who are the actual targets are abroad or in hiding and that therefore the relatives are chosen instead. But it also says something about how our Swedish society has taken a negative path.
– We do a lot of work and get many prosecuted, but it is not the individual factor that will break this development, much more is required from society as a whole, says Niclas Andersson.
Many of the sources Aftonbladet spoke to describe how the fight against the gangs is a battle that cannot be won – only curbed.
Niclas Andersson is prepared to agree. He says that we will probably never be able to return to the way things were 20 or 30 years ago.
– The wave of violence we have seen now will gradually decrease, I think so. But this has become such a big social problem that we will have it over time.