In recent years, Sweden has experienced a wave of gang violence, fatal shootings, and bombings unparalleled in Europe. Despite this escalation, authorities and media have struggled to provide comprehensive explanations for the trend.

The picture presented in the media is that the increase in gang violence in Sweden is a difficult-to-understand and complex phenomenon, linked to socioeconomic factors or social policy.

For example, Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT suggested in its latest investigation (August 2024) that the rise in gang shootings was not easily explained, pointing to the closure of ”societal functions such as police stations and post offices” rather than immigration as an explanation.

The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention has noted an increase in gang murders but has not compiled data on perpetrators’ backgrounds. This lack of statistics has hitherto made it difficult to examine the issue more thoroughly.

Bulletin has, as the first media outlet in Sweden, examined immigrant backgrounds among all 60 people convicted of deadly violence in 2022, the most recent year where such an investigation was possible.

By using court records about each individual homicide case, we are also able to separately analyse gang murders, the type of murder whose increase distinguishes Sweden internationally. Our reporters further matched each convict with birth records in order to examine their country of birth as well as their parents’ country of birth.

Key Findings:

- All 18 individuals convicted of gang-related murders in 2022 had foreign backgrounds, in all cases either a middle eastern or african country
- Of the total 60 people convicted of deadly violence, 40 had foreign backgrounds, either in the first or second generation.
- Somalia was the most common country of origin among both foreign-born perpetrators and parents of Swedish-born offenders
- The Järva area northwest of Stockholm was the most common residence area for perpetrators

Criminologist Ardavan Khoshnood, reviewing the findings, noted the significance of the data: ”What’s particularly interesting about this investigation is that it shows not just an overrepresentation, but that 100 percent of those convicted had foreign backgrounds. This represents an enormous overrepresentation when comparing to the immigrant population in the country.”

The most common gang affiliation was the Flemingsberg network, with three members on the list.

Among the remaining 15, two were members of Hjulstabarnen/Death Patrol (Järva), two in a network in Uppsala, and one each in Shottaz (Järva), Filterlösa Grabbar (Järva), Husby’s Hyenas (Järva), Z-network (Gothenburg), a gang in Araby (Växjö), a gang in northern Biskopsgården (Gothenburg), a gang in Fisksätra (Nacka), a gang in Eskilstuna, and a gang in Åstorp. For two of those convicted, no specific gang affiliation was indicated.

Below follows a detailed account of all cases included in the compilation, with information about motives, perpetrators, involved gangs, and sentences.

The compilation covers 12 cases with a total of 18 convicted perpetrators and 13 murdered individuals. All murder victims had previous criminal records, with attempted murder being the most serious offense. Others had been convicted of drug offenses, weapons offenses, robbery, and assault.

Of the 18 convicts for gang murders, all were either foreign born or had two foreign born parents. Of the total 60 convicted, 36 were either born outside of Sweden or had both parents born outside of Sweden, while 4 had one parent born in Sweden and one parent born outside of Sweden. 20 were native Swedes, defined as born in Sweden with both parents born in Sweden.

DETAILED CASES

Personal Conflict in Gang Environment, Gothenburg April 28, 2022
Convicted: Abdul Fatah Abdullah Elmi, 20, Swedish citizen born in Saudi Arabia with both parents born in Somalia. Previously convicted of robbery and minor crimes.
Involved gang: Criminal network in northern Biskopsgården.
Sentence: Life imprisonment in district court, upheld by court of appeals.

Dressed in black and masked, Abdul Elmi approaches a 25-year-old at Nordic Wellness gym near Tuve square in Gothenburg and shoots him once in the head. He approaches the body to verify the victim is deceased before leaving the gym on an electric scooter. Later that evening, he is arrested by police at a friend’s home.

The motive was a personal conflict with the murder victim, who had allegedly assaulted Elmi on previous occasions. While the murder itself lacks clear gang connections, Elmi is linked to a criminal network in northern Biskopsgården. Elmi was sentenced to life imprisonment in district court while denying the charges, but confessed to the murder before the court of appeals where he unsuccessfully claimed self-defense.

Revenge for Gang Defection, Gothenburg July 9, 2021
Convicted: Mohammad Awad (changed name to Josef Hultgren), 18, Swedish citizen born in Libya. Previously convicted of minor drug offenses and knife law violations.
Involved gang: Z-faction.
Sentence: 12 years imprisonment in district court, reduced to 9 years by court of appeals.

A 22-year-old is getting a haircut at a barbershop on Marklandsgatan in Gothenburg when two masked men enter and fire eleven shots at him among customers and barbers. The 22-year-old later dies at the scene.

The shooters leave on foot, and ten minutes later someone sets fire to clothes and other items a kilometer from the crime scene. DNA from an 18-year-old member of the criminal network Z-faction, which the victim wanted to leave, is found on a shirt that survives the fire. The 18-year-old is sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in district court but is fully acquitted in the court of appeals, which argues that his DNA could have ended up on the shirt in another way than through the murder.

However, another Z-faction member, Mohammad Awad, can be linked to the crime. He kept watch before the murder and informed the shooters that the victim was at the barbershop, and is therefore convicted of aiding and abetting murder.

Revenge for Betraying Criminal Gang, Helsingborg October 14, 2021
Convicted: Muhamad Saeed, 20, Swedish citizen born in Sweden with parents born in Iraq and Bosnia. Convicted of robbery at age 15, followed by several cases of driving without a license.
Involved gangs: Rival gangs in Åstorp.
Sentence: 13 years and 4 months in district court, increased to 14 years imprisonment by court of appeals.

During summer 2021, a conflict between two rival gangs in Åstorp, Skåne, involves several shootings. When a 19-year-old member of one gang falls into debt to the rival gang’s leader, he tries to resolve it by revealing information about his gang, such as which weapons and apartments they have access to.

When the betrayal is discovered, the 19-year-old is lured to Helsingborg by Muhamad Saeed, 20, who during the night shoots him in the arm, back, and neck. When police arrive at the scene, the 19-year-old is still alive and able to identify his murderer.

Two additional people whom the victim couldn’t identify were allegedly involved in the crime, and a 20-year-old and a 22-year-old are charged with murder alongside Saeed but are acquitted by the district court.

Revenge in Gang Conflict, Eskilstuna May 23, 2022
Convicted: Paul Araba Olugbenga, 17, Swedish citizen born in Sweden with both parents born in Nigeria. Previously convicted of aggravated unauthorized disposal, aggravated threats against an official, and violence against an official in connection with an escape from a youth detention center a year before the murder.
Involved gangs: Rival gangs in Eskilstuna.
Sentence: 8 years imprisonment for murder in district court, upheld by court of appeals.

At a pedestrian crossing in Bellmansplan in Eskilstuna, Paul Araba Olugbenga, dressed in black and masked, catches up with a 24-year-old man whom he pulls to the ground and shoots several times in the stomach and head before fleeing the scene.

About two years earlier, on September 17, 2020, a 16-year-old was shot dead by the same-aged Noel Vasseur, who was sentenced to juvenile detention for the murder. Olugbenga had been a close friend of the 16-year-old, and the 24-year-old he shot dead was friends with Vasseur. The murders are part of a conflict between two gangs in the Nyfors district of Eskilstuna.

Perceived Disrespect in Criminal Environment in Luleå, July 30, 2021
Convicted: Bahnan Mohammed Yusuf, 19, Swedish citizen born in Sweden with both parents born in Somalia. Previously convicted of two cases of robbery, drug offenses, and minor crimes.
Involved gang: Shottaz/Filterlösa Grabbar
Sentence: 14 years imprisonment in district court, upheld by court of appeals.

When Bahnan Yusuf, with connections to the Rinkeby gangs Shottaz and Filterlösa Grabbar, is visiting Luleå, he discovers that a car he left in a 25-year-old woman’s parking space several months earlier has disappeared.

He demands a meeting with the woman in the Notviken district, and when he arrives at the location, he immediately pulls out a pistol and demands an explanation. When the woman says she moved the car from her parking space and still has the keys, Yusuf shoots her multiple times.

Police are alerted to the shooting and find the woman deceased at the scene. In district court, besides Yusuf, two other people in his company are convicted of aiding and abetting murder, but both are acquitted by the court of appeals, which does not consider it proven that they were aware Yusuf planned to murder the woman.

Conflict Between Criminal Gangs, Stockholm May 31, 2021
Convicted: Abraham Sandy, 19, Swedish citizen born in Liberia. Previously convicted of aggravated robbery, drug offenses, and several minor crimes.
Involved gang: Husby’s Hyenas.
Sentence: Nine years and ten months with youth reduction in district court, upheld by court of appeals.

When a 28-year-old man is crossing Husby square in western Stockholm, he is suddenly shot at by two masked men on electric bikes. The 28-year-old runs from the scene, but the shooters pursue while continuing to fire as passersby flee in panic.

The 28-year-old is hit between nine and twelve times and dies at the scene while the shooters flee on their electric bikes. Two shooters and two people who monitored the target are suspected of the crime, but only Abraham Sandy is convicted, while three suspected accomplices are acquitted.

Sandy and the acquitted persons belong to the gang Husby’s Hyenas, but the motive behind the murder is unclear. The murder victim has been identified as one of Husby’s Hyenas’ leaders, and a potential conflict between the gang’s younger and older leaders is mentioned in the investigation as a possible cause.

However, the information is disputed, and another possible motive is that the perpetrators acted on behalf of the Tureberg network from Malmvägen in Sollentuna as revenge for a murder committed in 2019. Several members of the Tureberg network have later been charged with preparing to murder the victim, but none have been convicted of the crime.

Conflict Between Criminal Gangs, Stockholm, May 31 and August 30, Stockholm
Convicted: Muhsin Ibrahim Hussein, 20, Swedish citizen born in Sweden with both parents born in Somalia. Previously convicted of attempted aggravated robbery and minor crimes.
Convicted: Abdikarim Dahir Ibrahim, 20, Swedish and Somali citizen born in Somalia, previously convicted of several cases of assault and minor crimes.
Involved gangs: Hjulstabarnen/Death Patrol and Filterlösa Grabbar/Shottaz
Sentence: 13 years and 10 months in district court, upheld by court of appeals for Hussein, 10 years and 4 months in district court, increased to 13 years and 10 months in court of appeals for Ibrahim.

During a conflict in Hjulsta northwest of Stockholm during summer 2021, two murders are committed whose perpetrators are convicted in 2022.

The first murder victim is a 28-year-old man who is found with gunshot wounds to the head and neck shortly before midnight on May 31 and dies an hour later. Witnesses report that two or three people were involved, and near the murder scene, the pistol used is found with DNA from Muhsin Ibrahim Hussein and Abdikarim Dahir Ibrahim. The murder weapon can also be linked to a murder on May 12 when a man was shot dead in a stairwell in Hjulsta.

After the murder, several shootings follow in the area during the summer, and on August 30, a 22-year-old and a 25-year-old from the gang Filterlösa Grabbar go to Hussein’s apartment, which serves as a gang headquarters for Hjulstabarnen.

The home visit ends with Hussein shooting the 25-year-old dead and seriously wounding the 22-year-old with gunshots from the apartment’s balcony.

In district court, Ibrahim is only convicted of aiding and abetting murder, but the court of appeals changes the charge to murder and increases the sentence.

Competition in Drug Market, Stockholm November 2, 2020
Convicted: Semir Akil Hasooni, 21, Polish citizen born in Poland with a father born in Iraq. Previously convicted of several traffic violations
Involved gang: Filterlösa grabbar.
Sentence: Life imprisonment in district court, upheld by court of appeals.

When the 22-year-old man drives to an address in Beckomberga in western Stockholm, he believes he is meeting a customer to sell a small amount of drugs.

Instead, the armed Semir Akil Hasooni appears and kills him with six shots that hit, among other places, the head and chest.

The murder victim’s girlfriend is also in the car and initially identifies Hasooni as the murderer but later retracts her statement in court.

Chats from the police’s encrypted app Anom, which police in several countries managed to spread among criminals, show that she was subjected to pressure. A charge of aggravated interference in a judicial matter is filed but no one is convicted of the crime.

The chats reveal that Hasooni, who was connected to FLG, was irritated that the murder victim, who lacks proven gang connections, was stealing customers from him.

Personal Conflict Between Gang Members, Stockholm September 17, 2020
Convicted: Abdul Ghaffar Haleem, 29, Afghan citizen born in Afghanistan. Has an extensive criminal record with 42 entries, including serious drug crime, aiding and abetting serious weapons offense, and aggravated assault.
Convicted: Kevin Denzil Darwiche Williams, 20, Swedish citizen born in Sweden with parents born in Jamaica and Lebanon. Previously convicted of crimes including aggravated vehicle theft, drug offenses, and robbery.
Convicted: Toj Kamrani, 27, Swedish citizen born in Sweden with parents born in Iran. Previously convicted of crimes including aggravated assault, attempted aggravated coercion, and drug offenses.
Involved gangs: Flemingsberg network and Farsta-Fagersjö network.
Sentence: Life imprisonment for incitement to murder for Haleem, life imprisonment for murder for Kamrani, 14 years imprisonment for murder for Williams, all sentences upheld in court of appeals.

On September 16, 2020, gang criminal Toj Kamrani celebrates his 27th birthday together with Kevin Williams. Kamrani and Williams belong to the Flemingsberg network, but Kamrani also invites a friend from another gang, a 27-year-old man from the Farsta-Fagersjö network.

When the group is later walking across the Årsta bridge, the 27-year-old is suddenly shot in the cheek by someone in his company. He tries to run back toward Södermalm but is shot three times in the back. He collapses, whereupon the shooter approaches and shoots him in the head.

Chats show that Kamrani and Williams are acting on orders from Abdul Haleem, also a member of the Flemingsberg network, but the motive appears to be a personal conflict between Haleem and the 27-year-old rather than a settlement between the involved gangs.

Haleem was previously a member of the Farsta-Fagersjö network and friends with the murder victim but during 2018 he leaves the gang to join the Flemingsberg network. During the following year, the 27-year-old is subjected to two shootings and had told witnesses that Haleem was behind the murder attempts.

Debt Collection in Gang Environment, Uppsala September 15, 2021
Convicted: Mohamed Abdulqadir Aden, 19, Swedish citizen born in Sweden with parents born in Somalia. Previously convicted of vandalism and knife law violations.
Convicted: Dahir Mohamed Dahir, 20, Swedish citizen born in Somalia. Previously convicted of robbery, aggravated theft, and minor crimes.
Involved gang: Criminal network in Uppsala.
Sentence: 14 years imprisonment each in district court, upheld by court of appeals.

When a woman alerts police that a 29-year-old man has been shot in the apartment in the Gottsunda district where she is present, she is initially suspected of the crime as she is afraid to tell what happened.

Only when she learns about the possibility of personal protection does she tell that the 29-year-old was visited by two men who try to collect a debt at gunpoint.

She can identify one of the men as Dahir Dahir and tells that she is sent to the kitchen, where she witnesses how Dahir hits the 29-year-old with a crowbar on the leg, whereupon his accomplice, at Dahir’s urging, shoots the 29-year-old in the chest causing him to bleed to death on the sofa.

The woman who testified now lives at a secret location with protected personal information.

Punishment for Missing Weapon, Enköping August 7, 2021
Convicted: Mohammad Sarvar Azizi, 18, Iranian citizen born in Iran, previously convicted of minor crimes.
Convicted: Harman Jamal, 32, Iraqi citizen born in Iraq. Previously not convicted in Sweden, where he arrived a week before the murder.
Involved gang: Neither perpetrator is linked to any named gang.
Sentence: 12 years and deportation for Jamal and 6 years for Azizi in district court, both sentences upheld by court of appeals.

On August 9, 2021, a deceased 21-year-old man is found shot in the head in a field outside Enköping. He has been lying at the location for two days, and investigation links four men to the murder in various ways.

The murder is committed by Sarvar Azizi and Harman Jamal, who blame each other and claim they acted on orders from another man because of a lost or stolen weapon, an AK-44 that was to be used in another crime.

The alleged instigator and a suspected accomplice are acquitted of participation in the murder but convicted of other crimes, and in November 2023, the alleged instigator himself is murdered.

The district court does not consider it proven that either Azizi or Jamal is the perpetrator and convicts them of aiding and abetting murder, 6 years for Azizi with youth reduction and 12 years for Jamal. Both receive 2-year reductions each for contributing to the investigation. The court of appeals reclassifies both cases as murder but maintains the previously imposed sentences.

Jamal, who completely lacks connection to Sweden and had come here from Italy shortly before the murder, is also sentenced to deportation.

Revenge in Conflict Between Criminal Gangs, Växjö September 11, 2021
Convicted: Amin Sulaymaan Ahmed, 18, Swedish citizen born in Somalia, previously convicted of assault and theft among other crimes.
Involved gangs: Criminal gangs in the Araby district.
Sentence: 9 years imprisonment with youth reduction in district court, upheld by court of appeals.

When a 28-year-old is heading home in the company of a friend one night, two people approach them on electric scooters. One of them shoots the 28-year-old in the leg so that he falls down and then approaches and fires another shot in the torso and two in the head.

The background is a conflict between two criminal gangs in the Araby district of Växjö, where a gang consisting of slightly older Arabs stands against a gang with younger Somalis. The 28-year-old was a leader of the Arab gang, which had previously allegedly treated the Somalis poorly.

Shortly before the murder, rapper ”Sticky”, Mani Taghizadeh Chimeh, releases the song ”Vänd igen” (”Turn Again”) which is about the murder victim, and in the video, a man is shown being shot by someone on an electric scooter. Later, police find the murder weapon at Chimeh’s home, who along with two other people is convicted of serious weapons offenses.

The 28-year-old’s friend who was present at the murder identifies two people as guilty. One of them is Amin Ahmed, who can also be linked to the crime through technical evidence.

The other identified person is acquitted in both district and appeals courts due to less reliable technical evidence and indications that another person in the same gang may actually have been guilty.