Sweden accuses Iran of using criminal gangs to target Tehran’s enemies

Iran is using several notorious Swedish gangs as “proxies” in its fight against Israel, says Sweden’s intelligence service.

The Swedish security service (Säpo) on Thursday said Iran was using local criminal gangs to hit Israeli targets as well as Iranian dissidents in the country.

“The Iranian state uses criminal networks in Sweden to carry out violent acts against other states, groups, or individuals in Sweden that Iran regards as threats,” Säpo stated.

Daniel Stenling, Säpo’s head of counter-espionage, told journalists: “A regional conflict has spread and now includes Sweden as an arena.”

Other European countries, including the UK and the Netherlands, have also accused Iran of using local criminal gangs for violent attacks, including assassination attempts, against Tehran’s enemies.

Israeli and Swedish media reported that Israel’s spy service Mossad had claimed the so-called Kurdish Fox, head of the most infamous criminal gang in Scandinavia, Foxtrot, had started working for Iran, as had the main rival network, Rumba.

Sweden has the highest number of deadly shootings per capita in Europe thanks to bitter fights between immigrant criminal gangs that have in recent months worsened to include attacks on relatives of senior gang members.

Right-wing politicians and some security officials have long worried that Sweden’s longtime liberal immigration policy could lead to it importing many of the conflicts in the Middle East.

“We have dissidents from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, most of the Middle East countries — I don’t think we understand quite what we’re playing with,” a senior Swedish government official told the Financial Times last year.

The reports about Mossad point to two concrete events that Israeli intelligence links to Swedish gangs acting on behalf of Iran: a hand grenade thrown over the fence of Israel’s embassy in Stockholm in January, and gunshots outside the same building in May. It also linked Iran to a grenade attack against Israel’s embassy in Belgium last weekend.

“Our assessment is that Iran has both the intention and the ability to attack Sweden again,” Stenling said, although he and Säpo declined to comment on specific incidents or criminal gangs.

The leaders of Foxtrot and Rumba have been recently based in Turkey. But the Kurdish Fox, the name used by Rawa Majid, appears to have ended up in Iran. Mossad reportedly said Iranian authorities had given him the choice between a long jail sentence and co-operating with them.

Sweden’s centre-right prime minister Ulf Kristersson has described the domestic and international security situation facing the country as the most serious since the second world war.

While much of the focus internationally has been on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which led to Sweden and neighbouring Finland joining Nato, Swedes have been particularly concerned about gang violence, with scarcely a day going by without a shooting, bombing or grenade attack.

Swedish police say gangs have infiltrated Sweden’s generous welfare system as well as the courts and even the police.

Säpo and Sweden’s justice minister said Iran was, along with Russia and China, the biggest threat to the country’s security.