Teenage killers from Sweden are arriving in Spain at increasingly younger ages

Teenage killers coming from Sweden with one goal: to kill for a lot of money. This description doesn’t seem like the usual profile of a criminal in Spain, but specialists in organised crime and intelligence are warning that these kinds of dangerous young criminals are coming to the south of the country. Recent incidents have been reported in Alicante and the Costa del Sol.

For instance, in November of last year, the National Police detained a 14-year-old child from the San Juan neighbourhood for heading a group of hitmen in northern Europe and for allowing a 17-year-old to perpetrate a crime in Benalmádena (Málaga), which was stopped when he was also apprehended.

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José Luis Gil, an expert and co-delegate in Spain for the European Association of Criminal Intelligence Analysts (EACA), says that these kinds of criminals “are coming to southern Spain to do contract killings at younger and younger ages.”

The expert who organised the II Conference on Intelligence, Terrorism, and Organised Crime at the CEU Cardenal Herrera University of Elche on Monday said that these gangs “have been around for a while, especially on the Costa del Sol and in Barcelona.”

The agents of the UDYCO Central and the UDYCO Costa del Sol of the National Police are used to looking into violent crimes perpetrated by adults from Sweden, the Netherlands, or France.

“Never minors.” “At first, we thought it was a joke when Sweden warned us,” one of the people who worked on the case said.

“There are criminal groups from many different nations in the province of Alicante. They come from places like Eastern Europe, Ireland, the UK, North Africa, America, Turkey, and more. “But one thing that makes Swedish groups stand out is the hitmen,” he says.

The specialist uses data and case studies to “map” the activities of these harmful groups by doing academic study and intelligence analysis.

“There are many reports from Europol and Interpol that warn about the use of younger hitmen, and we saw proof of that last year,” he says.

Killings for hire

Social networks like Telegram are often used to find possible assassins. Targets are posted with payments ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 euros, depending on the victim’s profile and worth.

In the Alicante operation, the minor ran a network for a big international group and was in charge of a dozen young gunmen from northern Europe. When they were given a job, they travelled to the location and got the weapon of the crime to avoid problems on the way.

The most recent case involving the Nordic mafia was the murder of a Swedish rapper in Marbella by a 38-year-old hitman from the same country. The hitman shot him while he was on the terrace of a pub.

Because of these incidents, detectives are now looking into the presence of a new participant in the mix of classic criminal groups from around the world. Gil says, “It’s not something that happens all the time, because when they are found, it’s because they have been working in the area for a while.”

And it points out “the high level of violence they use when committing crimes,” which include assaults, torture, kidnappings, and killings.

Mafia heaven

Alicante and Marbella are great places for all kinds of mafias to set up shop because they are so heterogeneous.

He stresses, “Here in the province, we have almost everything because we are a border area and an entry point for cocaine from Latin America and hashish from North Africa.”

In a lot of cases, criminals walk the streets planning crimes without being caught because they don’t do their business in the area or the police catch them but don’t tell anyone for security reasons. This means that there could be a lot more of them.

Gil says that the agents are ready, but he also says that they need to “specialise more and more because criminal organisations are growing, expanding, and connecting at a faster rate.”In a lot of cases, criminals walk the streets planning crimes without being caught because they don’t do their business in the area or the police catch them but don’t tell anyone for security reasons. This means that there could be a lot more of them.

Gil says that the agents are ready, but he also says that they need to “specialise more and more because criminal organisations are growing, expanding, and connecting at a faster rate.”