Fernando, a hitman for a Swedish narcotics gang, checks his phone as it pings with his latest orders: collect the guns, go to the target’s front door and fire until he runs out of bullets.
“Yeah, I understand brother,” he replies casually. He collects two pistols, a Kalashnikov rifle and an accomplice, before hurrying to their target in a suburb of Stockholm.
But this is no ordinary gang hit. Fernando is 14, a teenage assassin who was playing the video game Fifa in his youth club when the orders arrived by text.
He is one among dozens of child contract killers in Sweden, recruited by gang middle-men on social media who pay as much as 150,000 kroner (£13,000) per job.
The number of murder cases involving child suspects in Sweden, which has the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the EU, has exploded over the past year. The figures rose from 31 counts in the first eight months of 2023 to 102 in the same period of this year, according to Sweden’s prosecution authority.
Swedish prosecutors and police say the use of children – many of them from an impoverished or foreign background – to commit murders on that scale is unprecedented. One recent case involved a boy of just 11 years old.
Children are the ideal catspaw for Sweden’s gangs: those aged under 15 are too young to be prosecuted, a quirk of Swedish law that critics say is in urgent need of reform.
In text messages seen by The Sunday Telegraph, Fernando’s “handler”, a member of Sweden’s Foxtrot gang, sent him tips on how to get into the target’s apartment block and avoid getting caught.
“If the [entrance] is locked, take a stone and break it,” the handler, with the alias “Louise Gucci”, tells Fernando. “Then you do your thing. After, when you come back to the hood, you put the Kalashnikov in the same place. Then go home and shower and wash your clothes.”
The Telegraph has seen mobile phone footage, filmed by Fernando himself to prove he did the job, in which he creeps down an apartment block stairwell with his young accomplice and approaches their victim’s front door.
Fernando holds the camera up as his accomplice raises the Kalashnikov and cocks the weapon. He fires through the door at least 15, continuing to pull the trigger as the pair retreat back down the stairwell. Then, they vanish into the night.
Social media has played a major role in the crime surge, with gang handlers posting contracts on online message boards as if they were pick-up missions in a video game.
“The group chats have adventurous and exciting names, like ‘bombing today’ and ‘who wants to shoot someone in Stockholm’,” Lisa dos Santos, a Swedish prosecutor, told The Telegraph. “It’s not like before, when they used encrypted phones on a closed network. Now you can take a gang job on Snapchat.”
More recently the gangs have sought out girls and children with mental disabilities, as they are less likely to arouse suspicion when they close in on their target.
Ms de Santos recalled one case where a 16-year-old boy fatally shot a father-of-two at his home in Västberga and then went upstairs to kill his wife and children.
The boy told the mother to turn around and shot her in the back. The bullet passed through her body and continued through a Winnie the Pooh toy held by her two-year-old child, who was also wounded.
“It’s so brutal that you can hardly believe it,” Ms de Santos said. “The father was shot lying on the couch, the mother was shot in the back. She was a doctor, so she tried to save herself and the child, and they both survived. I would say that’s the worst thing I’ve ever had in my career.”
The next day, the same teenager carried out another contract killing of a 60-year-old grandmother and a 20-year-old woman in Tullinge. The victims simply happened to be relatives of a rival gang member.
After he was caught, a Swedish court handed the boy a record jail sentence of 12 years. However, such convictions are rare, as the gangs focus on recruiting under-15s who cannot be prosecuted.
A recent case of gangs recruiting children involved a boy of just 11 years old – David Rose
The current wave of gang violence, from December 2022 onwards, is being fuelled by a power struggle between Foxtrot, one of Sweden’s largest organised crime networks, and the rival Dalen faction.
Both deal heavily in narcotics and are responsible for hundreds of shootings and bombings across Sweden. Smaller gangs have also joined the fray, with as many as 50 factions operating in Stockholm alone.
Two men at the heads of Foxtrot and Dalen have fled abroad, where they run their operations via middle-men. Rawa Majid, the leader of Foxtrot under the alias “Kurdish Fox”, is believed to be hiding in Turkey or Iran.
The whereabouts of Mikael Tenezos, the leader of Dalen using the alias “The Greek”, is less clear, though in June one of his associates was arrested in northern Greece.
‘They don’t cry’
Swedish police chiefs say they have been deeply disturbed by the young age of the contract killers and the lack of emotion they display when taken into custody.
“The investigators tell me that some of them are very calm, they don’t cry, they say nothing or ‘no comment’. They are totally lacking in empathy,” said Carin Götblad, a police chief in Stockholm at the National Operations Department.
“Some people say, ‘they don’t understand what they have done’. They may not fully understand the consequences of what they have done, but if you are 14 years old and you shoot a person in the head – you will understand that this man is dead,” she said.
Many of the children come from a migrant background, such as those who arrived in Sweden during the 2015 refugee crisis. Some have failed to integrate into Swedish society, and that is “one piece” of the puzzle, she said.
She stressed that child contract killers represented a tiny proportion of young people in Sweden. “Some progress” is also being made in co-operating with the countries where gang leaders are hiding to bring them to justice, she added.
Evin Cetin, an author of a book on youth gangs and a former Swedish lawyer, has argued that these children more resemble “child soldiers” than mere criminals, due to the ways that they are groomed by gang members.
The drugs trade, along with urban poverty and a deep sense of alienation in some migrant and refugee communities, is fuelling the problem, she said.
“[Swedish authorities] opened up the borders and welcomed a lot of refugees but didn’t open up the society,” Ms Cetin said. “They were put in areas where 99 per cent of the people living there had a foreign background.
“You have these areas where people have no money, no opportunities, and no chance to get a job … they see themselves as being at the bottom of society.”
Evin Cetin says these offenders are ‘child soldiers’, comparing them to Isis and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa – David Rose
She said that many of the children now working as contract killers were gradually drawn into the world of organised crime, starting with petty drug dealing at 12 or 13 and then becoming addicted themselves.
Some would fund their addiction by taking on contracts, while others risked being blackmailed by handlers who threatened to go after their families if they refused to co-operate.
“They are child soldiers,” she said, drawing comparisons to Isis and the Lord’s Resistance Army in parts of Africa. “They are getting used by older people who manipulate them. They are doing it with drugs, they are isolating them from society. It’s really easy to control children – and it is scary how fast they can actually do it.”
During her own research, Ms Cetin encountered young men with a deeply nihilistic view of their life prospects. One asked her: “I don’t care about my own life so why should I care about others’ lives or the society’s life?”
The Swedish government, propped up by the populist, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party, has sought to impose tougher sentences for child gangsters.
The government has also considered anonymity for court witnesses and “safe zones” where police can search youths without suspicion of a crime.
Critics say those measures are a sticking plaster for much deeper issues: gang grooming on social media, a lack of integration in Swedish society and a failure to address the international nature of the gangs.
Evin Cetin claims migrant and refugee communities are vulnerable to gangs in ‘areas where people have no money’ and ‘no opportunities’ – David Rose
Some teachers are taking matters into their own hands, working around the clock to monitor their pupils for warning signs that they are falling under the sway of gangs.
In a northwestern suburb of Stockholm, Nina Frödin is deputy principal of a Fryshuset (Frozen House) school which specialises in helping youths in gang-controlled areas.
The Fryshuset association used to help reform neo-Nazi teenagers, but its focus has shifted to children at risk of being groomed by gangs like Foxtrot, which operate in the suburbs.
Ms Frödin’s school is based in Kista, where around 80 per cent of the population comes from a migrant background. The school itself is bright and cheery, with students nattering next to the lockers and politely greeting visitors.
In the principal’s office, a motorcycle is propped against the wall – he is a motorsports fan, and the students are helping him to refurbish it.
“What we try to do here, and have been successful in doing, according to the police, is to have a warm atmosphere. We give them hugs, we talk to them, and try to reason with them. Some of us give out our private phone numbers, which is not normal, but we have to make a difference,” Ms Frödin said.
The students are also given paid jobs so that they have no need to seek quick cash from gangs, such as mending broken furniture.
A student mentor at the Fryshuset school says virtually ‘everyone’ has been directly affected by gang violence – David Rose
Fryshuset tries to foster a sense of pride among the students for themselves and their communities, to combat the feeling that wider Swedish society views them as “other”.
“With the first generation [of refugees and migrants to Sweden], they may not learn the language, and do cleaning jobs, things like that, and their children may see that Dad is working around the clock but doesn’t get anything for it,” Ms Frödin said.
As for young girls, they “feel stared at in Sweden for wearing the hijab and told that they are being oppressed. If they go into the city they are told to leave the shops”.
Feysal Ahmed, a student mentor at the school, said virtually every young person in the neighbourhood has been directly affected by gang violence. “When I was their age, maybe one per cent would raise their hand if asked that question. Now everyone raises their hand. That really got to me.”
‘End of the line’
Not all of Sweden’s teenage contract killers escape the clutches of the law. Those aged over 15 are sentenced to detainment in young offenders’ institutes run by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care (SiS).
One of those youth homes, Klarälvsgården, is nestled deep within the vast, river-laden countryside of western Sweden. Once a jail for Swedish draft-dodgers, it now houses child gang members.
The home is surrounded by tall, chain-link fences topped with barbed wire. Staff said they recently had to reinstall tougher fences as children would try to cut through them and escape.
Most of the doors can only be opened by staff members, and there is an on-site courtroom where youngsters attend criminal trials by video link. While it also has classrooms, a football pitch and a basketball court, it is in effect a high-security prison.
Klarälvsgården is the “end of the line” for these young men, says Stefan Fjällklang, a SiS psychologist. It is the last chance to get through to them before they are lost to the gangs forever.
‘Avalanche of these kids’
Around a year and a half ago, there were around 70 youths detained across the entire SiS network. Now the youth homes hold more than 180 children, more than double their maximum capacity.
“There has been an avalanche of these kids coming into SiS and we were not really prepared for it, but that is the reality,” Mr Fjällklang said.
“Three, four years ago, if the kids had a weapons possession charge, that would raise our eyebrows. The severity of the criminal behaviour, the callousness of those involved, is worse than it used to be. And the age is going down.”
Staff said they had limited documentation to work with and often had to start from scratch when a child entered SiS care. Some have undiagnosed mental illnesses or disabilities, such as ADHD, and struggle with basic communication.
For many of his charges coming from single-parent households, he might be the first positive male role model they have ever encountered.
Klarälvsgården has a football pitch, classrooms and a basketball court but is in effect a high-security prison – David Rose
Despite welcomed reforms allowing the confiscation of mobile phones to stop gangs from contacting detainees, staff say they need more support from the government as they are overwhelmed by gang-related cases.
“As a society we need to understand that this is a complicated issue and there is no quick fix … these boys are sometimes deeply involved with criminal networks and cannot get out even if they wanted to,” said Andreas Gustafsson, unit leader at the SiS youth home in Hässleholm, near Malmo.
“SiS is under a lot of pressure to provide more space for the long line of young boys who need secure placements. SiS cannot fulfill this task since it is an impossible task. The government on the other hand lacks a long-term strategic plan,” he added.
‘Make it something big’
Gunnar Strömmer, the Swedish justice minister, declined an interview with The Telegraph and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
The Telegraph later spoke to a young man, a former SiS detainee, who wanted to turn his life around. He said he was placed into state care as a teenager for leading a narcotics gang where at least 50 members each brought in 150,000 kroner (£13,000) per fortnight.
“I started by stealing car tyres. Then I thought, if I am going to do something, make it something big,” he said. “I don’t like being told what to do.”
Asked about the rise of child contract killers in the gang world, he reacted with disgust: “That’s terrible. We didn’t use kids.” He now plans to study economics and start his own business.
Staff at Klarälvsgården say some detainees have undiagnosed mental illnesses or disabilities and struggle with basic communication – David Rose
As for Fernando, the Fifa fan who filmed his friend firing a Kalashnikov through a door, there is another grim twist to his tale.
Fernando is not his real name. In text messages discussing his contracts, he used the alias “Fernando Soucre”, apparently borrowed from a character in the TV drama Prison Break.
No one was killed or injured in the shooting spree. But in a sign of the extraordinary callousness of these gangs, the target turned out not to be a gang member, but his ex-girlfriend.
Fernando’s accomplice was caught and sent to a young offenders’ institute, while his handler, alias Louise Gucci, was jailed for 18 years.
But as Fernando himself was just 14 at the time, too young to be prosecuted or sent to an SiS home, he never faced justice. His current whereabouts are unknown.
