THE ASIAN INDEPENDENT UK
Bal Ram Sampla
Geopolitics
Sweden is facing a crisis unlike anything Europe has seen before. According to report: Sweden Child Soldiers of Organised Crime, criminal gangs are turning children into soldiers, using them to commit murders, bombings, and other violent crimes.
In January 2025, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson made a shocking admission: “That we do not have control over the wave of violence is quite obvious.” This article examines how Sweden arrived at this point and why authorities are struggling to stop it.
How Children Became Weapons
Criminal networks, especially the powerful Foxtrot gang, have discovered that children make perfect weapons. They recruit kids as young as 12 years old through social media platforms like Snapchat, Telegram, and TikTok. On these apps, murder contracts are advertised like job postings, with clear prices: 500,000 kronor for a head shot, 200,000 for throwing a grenade, 100,000 for a murder in Sweden.
The speed of recruitment is terrifying. Police say a child can go from first contact with a gang recruiter to shooting someone in just days or weeks. The gangs use gaming language, calling attacks “challenges” or “missions” to make violence feel less real to young minds.
Why Gangs Target Children
The gangs target children for one simple reason: Swedish law cannot prosecute anyone under 15 years old. When a 14-year-old boy shot and killed a member of the Hells Angels in a contract killing, he was released because he was too young to be sentenced. Gang leaders call these children “disposable.” If caught, the children face no real punishment. If killed, the gangs simply recruit new ones.
The children they target are often the most vulnerable: kids in government care homes, children with learning disabilities, immigrants struggling to fit in, or young people looking for money and belonging. They are promised huge cash payments, sometimes over 13,000 pounds for a single job, along with expensive clothes and status among their peers.
The “Green Women” Strategy
In a disturbing twist, gangs have begun recruiting teenage girls, called “Green Women.” One gang member explained they want “young, blonde, typical Swedish women” because police would never suspect them. Girls as young as 15 are being asked to build firebombs, deliver weapons, and even choose whether to shoot at a rival’s door or his head. In 2023 alone, 280 girls aged 15 to 17 were charged with violent crimes including murder.
The Scale of Destruction
The numbers tell a devastating story. Between 2014 and 2023, the number of young people aged 15 to 20 suspected of murder increased by 391 percent. In 2024, Sweden recorded 317 bombings, more than double the previous year. In January 2025, Stockholm alone witnessed over 30 explosions. Sweden went from having one of Europe’s lowest shooting rates to the highest in just ten years.
By 2024, an estimated 1,700 minors were actively involved in criminal networks, representing 13 percent of all organized crime actors in the country. These are not just statistics; they are children who should be in school, playing with friends, and planning their futures.
The Foxtrot Network: A New Kind of Mafia
The Foxtrot gang operates like a modern mafia. Led by Rawa Majid, known as “the Kurdish Fox,” it controls Sweden’s drug trade from abroad. Majid obtained Turkish citizenship through investment and operates from safety while children carry out his orders.
But Foxtrot has gone further than traditional organized crime. Intelligence agencies including Mossad, the Swedish Security Service (Säpo), and the U.S. Treasury Department have confirmed that Foxtrot’s leader was recruited by Iran. After fleeing to Iran, Majid was arrested and told to cooperate with the Iranian regime or go to jail. He chose cooperation. In January 2024, Foxtrot orchestrated an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm on behalf of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
This means Swedish children are not just being used by gangs—they are being weaponized by a foreign government for terrorism.
Why Authorities Are Losing Control
Prime Minister Kristersson’s admission that Sweden has lost control is supported by several harsh realities:
First, the legal system was never designed for this. Swedish law was built on trust and rehabilitation, not on children as contract killers. By the time laws changed to allow prosecution of younger children, the damage was done.
Second, the recruitment happens too fast and too widely. With thousands of children on social media receiving job offers for murder, police cannot monitor or stop it all. Telegram channels advertising killings had over 11,000 members before being shut down, and new ones simply appear.
Third, the gangs are increasingly sophisticated. They use encryption, cryptocurrency for payments, detailed instructions for completing crimes, and networks that span multiple countries. Swedish children recruited by Foxtrot have committed crimes in Denmark and Norway.
Fourth, the problem is deeply rooted in social issues. As Prime Minister Kristersson admitted, decades of failed integration policies created segregated communities where gangs could thrive. Children in these areas see gang members with money and respect while seeing few other paths to success.
Finally, the involvement of foreign powers like Iran adds a layer of complexity that local police cannot handle alone. This is no longer just organized crime; it is international terrorism using Swedish children as weapons.
The Human Cost
Behind every statistic is a destroyed life. Children who commit these crimes often cannot return to normal life. They drop out of school, face retaliation from rival gangs, and carry the trauma of violence they have witnessed or caused. Many say they felt they had no choice, that once you are in, leaving is nearly impossible.
Victims and their families are destroyed. Innocent people are killed in bombings meant for gang members. Communities live in fear when grenades explode outside apartment buildings. Sweden’s reputation as a peaceful, safe country has been shattered.
Desperate Measures
Sweden is now taking desperate steps. The government is building prisons specifically for children as young as 13. They are negotiating with foreign countries to rent prison cells because Swedish prisons are full. They are considering deploying the military to help police fight gangs, something almost unthinkable in a Western democracy.
New laws allow police to seize cryptocurrency they suspect is from illegal activity, even without proving a crime was committed. The age of criminal responsibility has been lowered. But these are reactions to a crisis already out of control, not solutions that address root causes.
Conclusion
Sweden’s crisis shows how quickly a safe society can unravel when criminal networks exploit legal loopholes, social media, and vulnerable children. When a prime minister admits his country has lost control over violence, when 14-year-olds are shooting people for money, when foreign governments use local gangs to commit terrorism—something has gone terribly wrong.
The weaponization of children is perhaps the most shocking aspect of this crisis. These gangs have taken society’s most vulnerable and turned them into its most dangerous. They have stolen childhoods and futures. They have made children both victims and perpetrators of terrible violence.
Fixing this will require more than new laws and more police. It will require rebuilding trust in segregated communities, offering real opportunities to vulnerable children, taking on powerful criminal networks with international connections, and confronting the fact that this crisis was years in the making while warnings were ignored.
Sweden’s experience serves as a warning to other countries: organized crime that targets children can overwhelm even the most developed societies. Once control is lost, getting it back is incredibly difficult. The question now is whether Sweden can reverse this trend, or whether this is the new reality for a generation of Swedish children.
References
1.https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/child-soldiers-of-europe-why-is-organized-crime-increasingly-recruiting-minors/
2.https://bisi.org.uk/reports/the-rise-of-organised-crime-in-sweden
3.https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/01/sweden-runs-out-of-prisons-government-negotiates-sending-inmates-abroad/
4.https://x.com/i/status/2001623482015322364
5.https://www.euronews.com/2023/09/29/sweden-pm-asks-military-to-help-tackle-violent-gangs
6.https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/sweden-a-state-on-the-brink-of-implosion/
