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- [00:01]
A
Time. It's always vanishing. The commute, the errands, the work functions, the meetings. Selling your car. Unless you sell your car with Carvana. Get a real offer in minutes. Get it picked up from your door. Get paid on the spot so fast you'll wonder what the catch is. There isn't one. We just respect you and your time. Oh, you're still here. Move along now. Enjoy your day. Sell your car today. Carvana Pick up Fees may apply.
- [00:32]
Meet the computer you can talk to with Copilot on Windows. Working, creating and collaborating is as easy as talking. Got writer's block? Share your screen with Copilot Vision to help spark inspiration and use Copilot voice to have a conversation and brainstorm ideas. Or maybe you need some tech help with Copilot Vision. Copilot sees what you see. Let Copilot talk you through step by step guidance so you can master new apps, games and skills faster. Try now@windows.com copilot.
- [01:01]
Summer 2015 in the suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden and four childhood friends hatch an ambitious criminal plan for a group of mostly teenagers. Together, they're going to rob a foreign exchange office. You know the kind of place tourists and immigrants exchange money. A big time cash business with lots of bills lying around and way less security than a bank. And a much easier target than one. This sort of armed robbery is new for the group, but there are no strangers to crime. They've grown up in Sweden's Somali community in an area called rinkeby that by the 2010s is starting to develop a reputation for gangs, drugs and violence. Violence that is starting to shock Sweden. The story starts decades earlier. In the 1960s and 1970s, Sweden undergoes a massive plan to build a million housing units in neighborhoods like Rinkeby for Sweden's working class. In the decades following, the country opens up its doors to immigrants needed for the labor supply who flock to these neighborhoods. And in recent years they've taken in large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers, many from war torn countries. Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan. And while there are many success stories in some areas, especially with young men and teenagers, all often second generation, integration hasn't gone well. Who and what you blame for that? Well, the left and the right point to different reasons for why that might be. But all you need to know right now is that this group of friends represent a new trend in the Swedish underworld. Something that's going to turn Sweden's streets into the most violent and dangerous in all of Europe over the next decade. Well, except for Albania. But you know how that goes. And it's all because of the proliferation of gangs from these neighborhoods. A few months earlier, the friends had teamed up and robbed the jewelry shop using smoke bombs and firing gunshots in the air. The gun likely smuggled in from the Balkans. This plan, though, is a big step up for a group of youths looking to score big. And score big they do. They hit the foreign exchange office, it's a success, and they make off with something like $200,000 US. It's a massive score. There's just one little hiccup. One of the teens involved in the planning, he's cut out at the last minute. No heist work, no cash. Probably the biggest windfall he's ever heard of. But he's left with nothing. And he does not take this well. And he blames 20 year old Ismail Aiden, one of the plotters, for what happens, and starts to plot his revenge. It doesn't take long. That very same week, he's able to lure Ismail into a nearby forest, where he promptly guns him down, killing him. A few days later, another murder. A teenager killed, allegedly retaliation for the first murder. And so begins the gang war that defines Sweden in the late 2010s, as friends and family of these guys split into two gangs and that will become infamous across Sweden and set the tone for the country's underworld. Death Patrol, sometimes called Death Squad and Shadas. Over a dozen will be dead in the coming years, likely more, as child hitmen hired through encrypted apps fire automatic rifles in broad daylight on Sweden streets. Many will attribute Sweden's unparalleled rise in gangland violence to this split into rival factions. But many other gangs rise up during this brutal war. The gangs form alliances, cooperate on drug shipments, hire each other for hits, and sometimes merge while fighting viciously over territory, money and respect, egging each other on over Instagram and TikTok. The Shadows vs Death Patrol War is going to create a fundamental shift on Sweden streets. So much so that in 2023, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will take to the airwaves and address the nation saying, quote, sweden has never before seen anything like this. No other country in Europe is seeing anything like this. Later adding that Swedish laws aren't designed for gang wars and child soldiers. Says Diamant Salihu, an investigative journalist and author of a number of books on Sweden's gangs. We have so many child soldiers that nobody can count anymore. There are kids as young as 13 being arrested. How did one of Europe's safest, most prosperous countries descend into the real life version of Grand Theft Auto. This is the Underworld Podcast.
- [05:52]
Welcome back to the Underworld Podcast, the only podcast that is worthy of your precious time every single week, where we aim to entertain and inform you by taking you, our lovely listeners, on a journey through the world of international organized crime. And who are we? Myself, Danny Gold, and my good mate, Sean Williams joining us from New Zealand. We are two journalists who have reported on this stuff all over the world. Isn't that right, Sean Williams?
- [06:16]
B
It is, yeah. Just yesterday I went down to the beach, saw a gang of seagulls, nick a guy's chips straight out of his hands. I mean, that counts, right? There's crime. I think that's that. That's what I do nowadays.
- [06:26]
A
Could be better. As always, we have bonus episodes that are usually interviews, occasional crime news rundowns and other things up@patreon.com Underworld podcast or you can sign up on Spotify or on itunes if you're not signed up. What would it take to get you to sign up? We're trying to figure that out. We're thinking of doing 20 minute bonus episodes for every episode. Is that something that would work? Email us attheworld podcastmail.com to let us know. Sean has said on record that he is willing to show feet. So if that is something you're interested in, that would work as well. Let us know.
- [06:58]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what the fetish is for looking at a 40 year old runner's feet, but if it makes me five bucks, I'm down. I mean, I'm down for way more than if it makes five bucks, but yeah, I should probably end that.
- [07:08]
A
Listen, buddy, if you can dream it up, somebody out there is willing to pay $5 a month for it. And your feet fit into that category. What else? Support our advertisers. Underworldpod.com for merchandise. And away we go. This was a, a real interesting one. We probably should have done something on this two years ago. And Sean actually did do a prequel way back in 2021. And I had a friend of the pod, incredible researcher and Malmo resident. You go, come on, come on. Is that how you say his last name?
- [07:37]
B
Am I saying that much on do you know?
- [07:38]
A
Come on, come on. He wrote me up like a really thorough doc on a bunch of this stuff in 2023 that I relied on heavily for this episode. But there wasn't a ton of good English language stuff besides the same sort of like news outlet articles and YouTube docs or the sort of gangfluencer YouTube docs that you see. And we wanted to be more thorough. Luckily, Diamant Salihu, probably one of the best, if not the best reporter on the gangs in Sweden. He just published an English language book called When Nobody's Listening, which is a fantastic source and it's one of the ones I also use to make this episode. Okay, Sweden gang Wars. It's a hot topic, or maybe it was three years ago, but you know, we like to be thorough here on the Underworld podcast. I think I remember like even back then, you know, new fangled YouTuber news doofus who always wears a beanie going there to investigate the quote unquote, no go zones. But we don't like to dignify those people with acknowledgment. And while I do love a good Malmo. Is that. Is that it?
- [08:37]
B
Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's called Malmu because it's got an umlaut on the O. On the O. But like, come on, which guy that doesn't speak Swedish is going to call it that? Malmo. Yeah.
- [08:47]
A
Anyway, I like a good Malmo as Mogadishu joke or any other war zone. But we're going to take a bit of a different approach and to get started. That's right, Sean, we're going to go back because you see, in 1397, Sweden joins the Scandinavian Kamar. I'm just kidding. We're not, we're not going to start there. We're going to start in like the late 80s, early 90s. That's when Sweden gets its first real taste of gang warfare.
- [09:10]
B
Damn, he lampooned me. It was a simple lampoon.
- [09:14]
A
I think I was lampooning. I mean, I do the same thing. I'm lampooning all of us. It's just a joke of the, the cliche of the genre. Because anyway, that, that period, the 80s and the 90s, that's when we have the international biker gangs, the Hells Angels and the Bandidos looking to expand and get involved in the international drug trade there and other money making rackets. And that kicks off the Great Northern bike or the Nordic Biker War or the Scandinavian Biker War, whatever you want to call it. We just did a big episode on that maybe six months back. So you don't even have to scroll back more than 20 seconds if you want to find that and brush up on everything. So I'm not going to do a really a deep dive, but what you have to know is they fought, they killed each other and it was very violent. It's the first real taste of violence like this that the country of Sweden has. Though it seems remarkably tame to what's been happening the last 10 years.
- [10:04]
B
Yeah, I feel like at this point we should just tee up each episode with like a bullet point list of when we've done I know, Preludes or similar topics, the show number date. Unless it's one of the really old ones. Because yeah, I mean some of the first ones, no one should listen to those. In fact, I mean, maybe we should just do 2026 reissues. Like, you know, like we're a lazy record label saying Nigerian cults arcan redux. That'd be pretty good, right?
- [10:26]
A
We could, we could do redo them because they weren't on video and they were poorly written and poorly presented with bad sound. So maybe, maybe that's what we do.
- [10:34]
B
I was actually in the basem of my friend house in Berlin who is a Swedish house DJ and my accountant, which was the most Berlin thing ever. So yeah, I apologize to him for Malmo. But yeah, it was a very different time.
- [10:48]
A
We'll see, we'll see. Maybe holiday episodes. We'll do that. So after the biker wars are kind of around the same time, we get the emergence of a new group of players and that's the former Yugoslavian mafia groups. Now in the 70s, Sweden is going through a bit of a boon and they invite a host of foreign workers from the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia to among other countries to come through and work low paying jobs for Swedes, but high paying for them. But all this Balkan migration comes with a catch. Yugoslavia is a hotbed of crime at the time. And as Misha Glennie says in McMafia, these so called guest worker communities, they quote, provided the milieu in which less salubrious Yugoslav characters could take refuge and disappear from police if necessary. Which is like the journalistic academic nerd way of saying, you know, some bad apple slipped in too though you know, we have an immense amount of respect for Misha Glennie who does real stuff in the field, but come on, that's like salubrious, like, like, you know, we're here for the, for the average Joe. Sean actually did a pretty thorough episode on this way back in 2021. Like I mentioned, I believe it's actually called Sweden Gang Wars. Think of it as the prequel of this. But yeah, you have some petty criminals and low level mafioso types setting up shop there. And then in the 90s as Yugoslavia falls apart, you have the emergence as one often sees during wartime and in places with vacuums of power, sort of new states, all that of a pretty serious organized crime group or organized crime groups. And as the great Sean Williams writes, quote, add to that these thumped broken nations in the former Yugoslavia and you've got ready big gangs with lawlessness and easy trafficking routes at home and a network of established tooled up hoods ready to go all over rich European nations.
- [12:28]
B
Yeah, that's pretty well written. I mean, Michigan. Lenny could, could take a few notes from that. I wonder why that guy hasn't won an award. I don't know. It's pretty good writing.
- [12:35]
A
Should win awards for sure. He should show feet and he should win awards. Rich European nations that are wide open with lackluster policing and an extremely lenient criminal justice system, which is still an issue decades later. Look, I'm not saying you need to be like El Salvador, but also maybe murder sentences should carry more weight than like five years in a studio apartment with a PS5. Yeah. But yes, the mafia is forming in the Balkans during this chaotic and anarchy period. They see Sweden as a potential home for doing, doing crimes. So what emerges in Sweden are competitors for the Motozucker gangs in the mid-90s, and that is these Balkan organized crime groups who move into drugs and women and gambling, all the usual. And they have a steady supply of weapons from their former countries to make sure that the rules they set are abided by. And these mafias, along with the bikers, they run the underworld in Sweden in the 90s and in the 2000s. And these are like more sort of organized crime, even though, you know, they're bikers, older experienced guys who want to make money. Less wild street gang, shoot first over Instagram insults, you get me. Armed robberies kind of become a thing too. They're a pretty big moneymaker for them and there are some wild heists and some real characters. But as we start to enter the 2000 and tens, things are changing in Sweden's crime scene. And this is when we start to see Malmo becoming code for gang violence or referred to as Sweden Chicago. Though in all honesty, as you hear me talk about how crazy the gang violence is there, it really does not compare to say, you know, the gang violence in Hop Edge in the States or anywhere close to Latin America, probably even Canada either. It is though, what we call in the news industry, this stuff in Sweden, it's man bites dog, not dog bites man. Everything is relative. I mean, do I, you think I need to explain that phrase? Do people know what that means?
- [14:22]
B
Yeah, I mean, maybe you should explain it and While we're here, let's tell everyone what nut graph is because I reckon they really want to know that. And while you're on that, I can't tell. You can tell me why editors spell out these words phonetically like head deck, because I actually don't know even know that myself and I'm in the industry.
- [14:37]
A
Yeah, okay. Anyway, so dog bites man means that like it's something that, that, that commonly happens. So like, you know, gun violence in New York, like someone, like there's a shooting or someone gets killed, it's going to make the news, but it'll be further down because it's not something that's completely out of your ordinary. Where somewhere like Sweden, it's like man bites a dog, that's like a wild thing that's out of the ordinary. So the same exact thing happening somewhere like New York might not make the news that it would in Sweden. Although as we're going to find out, Sweden's got crazier murders, I would say, than even New York has right now. Malmo, for those who don't know, it's a city in Sweden. It's the third largest that develops a pretty bad street gang problem around then and a bad grenade being thrown problem, not the least of which is because it's the gateway to Denmark. So a border town which drugs flow through. And at this time there's new gangs emerging and they are way more wild, more chaotic and more violent than ever before. And they're much younger. And most of the gang members, especially the gang leaders, are either second generation children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. And this is what causes the issue of gang violence in Sweden, not just the murders and the chaos to become a really hot button controversy not just in the country but all over Europe. And so much so that eventually it makes its way over to even American news shows and American podcaster youtuber. Culture war stuff. See, Sweden fancies itself as like a very progressive, very welcoming country. And it is to a degree around this period and before, like we said, it takes in a lot of refugees and immigrants, asylum seekers from a lot of war torn or just difficult Somalia, North Africa, the Middle East. And a lot of these people, they settle in the suburbs of cities like Malmo and Stockholm or even the university city of Uppsala.
- [16:26]
B
Yeah, actually interestingly, for a long time, Syrianska fc, it's like a top tier Swedish football team and it was formed straight out of the Syriac community and stuck up with Syriacs are like Arab Christians, right. I think they're like Arab Orthodox Christians, but they Were formed out of that in the 70s and they actually reached the premier league in Sweden. So like it's like a really big, big thing there. And they've fallen on hard times recently. The usual football syndrome, tried too much, ran out of cash. It's a syndrome in Denny in Stockholm. A soccer Stockholm syndrome.
- [16:59]
A
It's terrible.
- [17:00]
B
That was labor. That was the most labor thing I've done in a while.
- [17:03]
A
That was awful. We're really striking out here. This is not one of our good band episodes. I mentioned this briefly in the Cold open, but between 1965 and 1974, Sweden goes on one of these incredibly ambitious public housing projects. One of the most I think in European history. And the goal is simple. They're going to build 1 million new apartments to eliminate housing shortages. And as people flood in from rural areas into cities during Sweden's industrial boom, the apartments are modern, they're affordable and they're built quickly. I mean, you know the type. The sort of massive concrete housing blocks on the outskirts of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. Though I definitely think they were a lot nicer than your sort of like Soviet housing blocks you see in Eastern Europe. You know, there's something definitely to be done on the backfiring of well intentioned housing projects like this. Some pretty massive gang related stories here from like this one in Sweden. You've got Cabrini Green in Chicago, Pruitt Igoe in St. Louis, the housing projects in like Brownsville, New York, South Bronx. I mean I'm sure there's a ton more but it's a pretty interesting phenomenon. But yeah. Anyway, these developments, they're popular with working class and middle class Swedes. They're a great example of your northern European welfare state successes. Until they're not.
- [18:16]
B
Yeah, actually shout out also to Glasgow, the Ice Cream wars, another past show that came straight out of these like giant, poorly planned housing projects in the uk. And you know who those real crooks are, Danny?
- [18:29]
A
Those crooks in architecture, development, whatever. City planning. Those crooks in city planning. It is. I mean look, they. I don't think these things are started with bad intentions, right? Not always. The road is paved with good intentions. The road to hell. Anyway, we are.
- [18:45]
B
That's actually delivered way better than it.
- [18:47]
A
Should have been too negative.
- [18:51]
B
Road is paid with good intentions. The road.
- [18:54]
A
There's an old book I read that was called Was the Road to Hell. Oh, Michael Marin about foreign aid in. In East Africa in the 90s. Great book. The Road to Hell I think was called. Fantastic title too. I'm sure there's tons of books called the Road to Hell, but that one stuck with me. Anyway, we are going to get to gang warfare in a second. Just stick with me for a little while longer on this origin story stuff. By the 1980s and 1990s into the 2000s, Sweden begins accepting large numbers of refugees from conflict zones around the world. Chile is listed there for some reason, but I guess. Was there conflict in chile in the 80s and 90s?
- [19:26]
B
Yeah, I mean, there's Penichele, right?
- [19:27]
A
Yeah, right, right, right. But 70. I thought it was 70. Whatever.
- [19:31]
B
He was there till the 90s, I think.
- [19:33]
A
Yeah, yeah. Palestine, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, the former Yugoslavia. And this is like a point of national pride for the Swedes. They see themselves as this humanitarian superpower, a beacon of tolerance and generosity. And they. They do love to tell you this, those sanctimonious Scandinavians as they lecture you about America. But one thing America does right better than probably any other country in the world during that period, and I will stand by this, is integration for immigrants while also providing them the opportunity to work or build a business. And again, obviously, I'm not saying it's like, it's easy and it's not perfect, but it is. Was far better than most, if not all.
- [20:12]
B
Yeah, Dale, you can play some patriotic music over the top of that. That was beautiful.
- [20:16]
A
It's just. It's just true, dude. Like, we, we. People just get integrated better here. Like way better than in Europe. I mean, come on, you know, that's the case.
- [20:24]
B
I don't know. My cricket team was pretty. Pretty good for that.
- [20:28]
A
I would say Canada, I think Canada does a fairly good job.
- [20:31]
B
Yeah, Canada's great.
- [20:32]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's better. It's. I think it's easier to. In terms of employment opportunities, like start a business and make. Like when I walk down my street, you know, there's like 15 people from. From 14 different countries with small businesses, which I think is something that's a lot harder to do in. In most of Europe, maybe even in Canada. I don't know, the Swedes, they kind of forget about the integration or they fail at it or their new populations don't make a good enough effort. It's probably a combination of all three. Whatever the reasoning is, these populations get isolated somewhat and have troubles with unemployment, with poverty, with social isolation or just adapting to a new place. Now, I kind of want to make this clear that, like, this isn't the situation of, you know, like, like the Paris suburbs, right, where those areas are super deprived, almost Walled off and young people for them cannot get a job anywhere. I think to some degree the country of Sweden makes some effort to welcome immigrants, to integrate, to provide opportunity, but we can just say that it doesn't go quite as well as they hoped. And there is certainly a culture clash.
- [21:34]
B
I guess in Europe. The difference is that they're like explicitly brought in as guest workers. Right. The Gas Darby to. In Germany. So I mean, there's not. They're not like encouraged to actually make their own businesses and stuff like they might do in the States. But yeah, I mean, Venezuelan oil politics last week and now this. I mean, we're gently leaning into actual podcast in half a decade down the line. Where. Where could this end?
- [21:56]
A
When you say actual podcasting, do you mean like the terrible sort of podcast that just kind of like the debate?
- [22:03]
Yeah, the terrible ones that make money. They just debate whatever political issue is of the day that without understanding it. I don't want to lean into that, but I do encourage you guys. Let's see if we can juice this algorithm, argue with each other in the comments. You know, keep it, keep it above board, but let's do some arguing. Let's see what happens. Maybe Sean will even chime in.
- [22:20]
B
Yeah, Ash's chat doesn't really do it for the algorithm on Spotify.
- [22:23]
A
I don't think this is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan. Real United Airlines customers. We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kath and Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me.
- [22:41]
B
Of myself when I was that age.
- [22:43]
A
That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future.
- [22:48]
B
It felt like I was the captain.
- [22:50]
A
Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means half day. Yeah. Give it a try@mint mobile.com switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month. Required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow. 135 gigabytes of networks busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mint mobile.com.
- [23:25]
B
Hey guys, it's Andrew from the Scary Mysteries podcast. Where every single week we dive into insane and creepy true crime compilations as well as cover the most terrifying and strange news stories currently happening all around the world. We go into all the topics you want to hear about, missing persons, killers, UFOs and more. Best of all, we don't waste your time with any fluff or fillers, just straight in all the dark details. If you like true crime and you're.
- [23:55]
A
Going to love us, so go check out the Scary Mysteries podcast right now.
- [24:01]
Anyway, so back to where we were I was saying. Yeah, so for sure, isolated, marginalized questions of identity definitely don't have the same advantages Swedes do, but most immigrants don't. In most countries and as we've covered before throughout the history of America, going back to the Irish and the Italian and the Jews at the turn of the century, organized crime, gangs emerging from this sort of phenomenon. It's nothing new and it's somewhat universal. So I actually asked, I asked Hugo this or he wrote about it in the document he sent me a couple years ago. He is like an incredible open source researcher and analyst focused on vehicle born IEDs who also spent years in Malmo. I think he still lives there or he grew up there, I'm not even sure. But he's periodically clued me in on Sweden's gang saying and actually wrote us that huge packet PAC document a couple years ago that I keep mentioning.
- [24:51]
B
Yes, great.
- [24:51]
A
He said, quote, Sweden is among the least racist countries in the entire world and using the racism card is simply an expression of a detrimental victim mentality whereby immigrant kids are told they don't have any chance and thus give up before trying to make something of themselves. When everything is the fault of the racist structures of the state and society, the individual is automatically absolved of responsibility for their own actions. Coupled with the detrimental gangster culture whose popularity has skyrocketed in the past decade, this provides a clear path into the ranks of the gangs. Because what else are they going to do when everyone has told them they don't have a chance at a normal life? Sweden on average spends far more on immigrant dominated neighborhoods in terms of educational facilities, healthcare availability etc than on neighborhoods with majority Swedish populations, something that negates the claim that the state neglects these areas. Rooting the choice to turn to gang crime and poverty also ignores the fact that gang criminals represent a tiny minority of the people living in these areas. The overwhelming majority, despite their relative poverty, go about their lives without feeling the need to turn to crime. There are also so many success stories that discredit the connection between socioeconomic factors and criminality. Adding to that something Diamant Salihu writes in the beginning of his book, quote, I stress the point that the criminals I speak to don't usually blame society or their parents. Rather they tend to insist that they actively chose their lives style, which, you know, I've mentioned this before, but like the cool factor, right. It's a real thing. It does not get included enough in discussion about why young people join gangs, especially in the age of social media. Right. The truth is, it is. It's cool. They get girls from it, they get money from it, they get friends and they become popular. Like it's a real thing that, that attracts kids to gangs.
- [26:33]
B
Yeah. That's why I joined journalism, which, which actually is a self efface and joke because it's not true, but it actually is. Watch journalism in many ways.
- [26:42]
A
Yeah, you misled.
- [26:43]
B
Whoops. Yeah.
- [26:45]
A
Whatever the case, in these neighborhoods in Sweden, things are not going well. And the first inkling of that really starts to happen around this period 2010. The gang violence ratchets up enough that international media starts picking up on it, writes the New York Times in 2011 about one such neighborhood, Rosengard. Quote, Rosengard hardly has the look of a troubled ghetto. Lawns and playgrounds abound, but the area does not look like traditional Sweden either. Satellite dishes hang from every balcony, the bakery sells Middle Eastern confections, Al Jazeera plays on the televisions and young men huddle on street corners casually bragging about doing battle with the police. And it continues, quote, A few years ago, the fire and ambulance brigades would not even enter Rosengard without a police escort. Youth there threw rocks and set cars on fire. Police officials say things are much better now. Fires were down 40% last year compared with 2009. But last month two police vehicles parked at the station were set on fire with small homemade explosives. There's a real uptick in the violence in 2011. A gang leader is shot dead and by 2013, Reuters is calling Malmo quote, Sweden Chicago since that first gang leader has dropped another eight go in a year. And again Sweden's got a really, really low homicide rate, especially when it comes to shootings. And now over 80% of them are gang related to. So this violence starts to ramp up around that time. And Sweden also goes through these successive waves of unrest during these years. Pretty sure I just took this out of your episode, John. This is your writing, which you can tell it's terrific.
- [28:14]
B
Fine.
- [28:15]
A
In 2013, cops shoot a 69 year old man dead in The Stockholm suburb of Hoosby. So rioters set a Stockholm police station on fire and folks in Malmo burn up two squad cars. Cops are starting to warn about a gun problem even back then too, says a deputy commissioner quote, we believe it's linked to the prevalence of weapons. It is big.
- [28:35]
B
Yeah, it's nice to be plagiarized in a way that might actually make me a couple of quid for a change instead of the usual insider slash fire story. Anyway. Yeah, I mean, is it. Is this down to the fact that there's all these weapons caches left over by the former Yugoslavian migrants? Is that where the guns are coming from or is it. Is it something else? What?
- [28:55]
A
I don't think they're left in Sweden. You mean they're caches left in Sweden. They're coming from the caches left in like the former Yugoslavia?
- [29:01]
B
Yeah, well, I don't know. Kind of both really. Like I would assume they bought some or. Yeah, I don't know.
- [29:07]
A
I think there was data that showed that they're actively being smuggled in and a lot of them are coming from Serbia, which I think makes that rifle. What's it called? The Serbian rifle. That's supposed to be.
- [29:15]
B
Wait, I'm going to say Makarov. But that's not as a pistol, isn't it?
- [29:18]
A
No, I think I talk about it later. Down. But I also think, you know, getting like AK knockoffs are not. Is not hard.
- [29:26]
B
Chinese knockoffs. Right. In Serbia, I can imagine bouncing, I'm sure. Use love.
- [29:30]
A
Yeah, and it's, you know, it's a lot of guns for Sweden. Right. But I don't think it's a lot of guns. And it's also a country of 10 million people, so how many guns do you really need to like heat things up? It's probably, I don't know, what in thousands.
- [29:41]
B
Thousand. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [29:42]
A
That's just a guess. But obviously it's a huge difference. Right. Especially when people are willing to. To shoot. And I think a lot of these gangs are similar to like low rank gangs in the States where they have a couple weapons and they trade them around, you know?
- [29:53]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:55]
A
Okay. So this is, this is a gigantic change for the country. Sweden's supposed to be a place of safety, of prosperity, social and racial harmony. The kind of place you can leave your doors unlocked and whole families go for bike rides together through the city. Violent crime, murders, gangs. I mean, sure, you had the bikers and you had a little bit of those bank robberies, but that stuff is supposed to happen elsewhere, not in Sweden. And even with the previous iterations of Swedish gang warfare, the bikers and the Hugo mobs, the country has never seen anything like it's starting to see with the gang warfare that is now threatening to take over the city streets. And nothing really brings us home like the war that erupts in 2015 between death patrol and Shadas. Shadas with a Z. Both gangs are started by teenagers of Somali descent, childhood friends in the Stockholm suburbs of Rinkeby and Tensta. And that's where we get the cold open, where I went into it a bit. And Rinkeby is part of that million housing plan. According to 2011 data, residents in Rinkeby come from Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Turkey, Finland, Ethiopia, Eritrea, former Yugoslavia, Greece, Poland, Chile, Syria, China, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Morocco, Lebanon. 60 different ethnic groups speaking 40 different languages, like. So it's like Queens. Like a neighborhood in Queens. It's actually somewhat of a success story too. I mean, it has public libraries, green gardens with playgrounds, clean roads, good schools and public transport, artists and musicians and families that thrive. I actually think, God, where was that base? Did you watch Snap a Cash on a on Netflix?
- [31:27]
B
No, no, no.
- [31:29]
A
Oh, great, good. I think it might be based more on Foxtrot. Yeah, great, great. Like Swedish crime show about like the gangs in these housing projects. But definitely, definitely recommend it.
- [31:38]
B
I mean, the neighborhoods have. The names are too nice sounding to have anything going on. Rinkeby Husby.
- [31:45]
A
I think they actually are. I mean, these aren't neighborhoods, from what I understand. They don't look like favelas or like projects in the U.S. no, they still.
- [31:52]
B
Do look mid century kind of big. Yeah, projects like, nothing bad.
- [31:56]
A
Yeah, okay, so, yeah, success stories. But of course there's the other side. High unemployment for young men, poor school scores compared to the rest of Sweden. Kids growing up feeling disconnected from mainstream Swedish society or having these identity issues. And of course, the allure of the street life. Here's how the website fairplanet.org describes Rinkeby in an article titled Somali Mothers Fighting Street Crime in Sweden. I think this is from 2015 or 2016. Rinkeby is one of the residential areas that embodies the runaway crime and is seen as a reflection of Sweden's failed immigration policies. Christened the Little Mogadishu due to the large Somali population, the predominantly immigrant town with a population of about 19,000 people and where 9 out of 10 people are non Swedish, has never known peace. Drugs are trafficked openly, police cars are torched and bombs go off randomly. Teenagers as young as 15, carry guns and wear body armor. Interestingly, the suburb hasn't had a police station since 2014, although the government has announced plans to set one up in 2019. And that's from a progressive human rights NGO based in Berlin. Just to. Just to add that in, yeah, it.
- [33:01]
B
Does sound quite a lot like Mogadishu, to be fair.
- [33:03]
A
I think it's. Like I said, it's a man bites dog situation, right. Compared to what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, the lore of the street. And that's sort of how that crew from our cold Open get started. Petty drug dealers and thieves pushing dimes on the corners and whatnot. But they want more. So first they start off robbing the jewelry store, the smash and grab in the mall. And then on the morning of July 22, 2015, they hit the foreign exchange. The robbery is successful, but the partnership goes sideways. And so begins the infamous gang war that pretty much births both these notorious gangs. The friend groups, the relatives. They fracture and they take sides. On the one side, Shadas, and on the other side, Death Patrol, which also goes by 3mst. These are loose gangs full of teenagers without a strong hierarchy. But they're vicious. They have no issues killing each other. In fact, Death Patrol eventually becomes known for contract killings charging tens of thousands of dollars a hit. And that's going to become a big issue in Sweden, especially when encrypted apps hit the scene around 2017 and people can get hired anonymously. More. More on that later, because that gets really crazy the next few years. 2015, 2016, 2017, there's tit for tat attacks, bombings, shootings, all that. And it's not even the only gang war going on in Sweden. Then in the winter of 2017 into 2018, things get brutal. Now, I don't know if this is the first example of this, but it's one that's often pointed to as like the exclamation point for when this tactic takes off. In January of 2018, a death patrol hitman walks into a pizzeria in broad daylight in Rinkeby and executes a shot as member shooting him in the head, point blank.
- [34:46]
B
Yeah, that. That is an insane step up. It's coming back to me now, like the 2021 show that I did as well. I think I led with a. There was like a crazy killing in a barbershop in broad daylight. I think, like hail of bullets, 2pm like tons of people around. It's like insane stuff out of nowhere, the kind of violence. Yeah, yeah.
- [35:06]
A
But here's the thing that sets the tone for the next decade or so of gangland assassinations in Sweden. The shooter is 16 years old. He's soon caught. But because of Sweden's super lenient criminal justice system, especially when it comes to people under 18, he's given only three years. And those three years are to be served in a youth facility. And this, this whole, this whole thing, it's a calculated thing by Death Patrol. They are aware of how low the penalties are for teenagers in Sweden, even for murder. See, in Sweden, murder suspects under 15 cannot be arrested by police. Social services handle them. And if they're between 15 and 18, they cannot be sentenced to adult prison. Instead, the harshest sentence they can expect is three years of youth confinement where they're allowed phones, computers and other luxuries for shooting and killing another person, regardless of how brutal the act is.
- [35:58]
B
Yeah, this does seem like saying gang leaders could maybe exploit for nefarious means, but I don't want to give away any spoilers.
- [36:03]
A
Yeah, yeah. In fact, murder charges in general only carry between 14 and 18 years of prison, which ends up being nine to 12 years behind bars with early release on good behavior. And you may have heard about some shooters getting life imprisonment, but that only means that you're not eligible for parole until after 10 years served. In fact, there's a case where 17 year old killed a cop. I think that was in 2021, and he only got eight years. And that was an extraordinary case where anything below the already extremely lax sentence would have been viewed as even more of a slap in the face to police. Now add into this that cops in Sweden are particularly understaffed. They get pretty low pay and they're really hamstrung in terms of surveillance and monitoring even known gangsters because of super strict privacy laws in Sweden that make it extremely hard to take down these gangs. There's no RICO laws here whatsoever.
- [36:54]
B
Super interesting. I'd have assumed also that base pay for a public worker in Sweden was like 100 grand or something. And they're like, I didn't even know they were underpaid people in Scandinavia. That's interesting.
- [37:03]
A
I think I looked it up and cops average like five grand a month.
- [37:08]
Jesus. But I could be Stockholm's. Stockholm's expensive too, right?
- [37:12]
B
Yeah, it's insanely expensive. Yeah.
- [37:14]
A
More so than New York.
- [37:16]
B
No.
- [37:19]
A
Yeah. You. You learned a lesson last week.
- [37:21]
B
Keep on enjoying. Yeah, yeah, I did.
- [37:23]
A
Especially those at those. Those clubs we were going to.
- [37:27]
B
Well, no comment. But there are ways to spend your money. They're better.
- [37:30]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Also, one thing left out of a lot of convos. Around 2011, Sweden's Supreme Court changes some rules when it comes to prosecuting drug trafficking and dealing, which makes sentencing possibly way more lenient. Judges are given a bit more wiggle room to consider extenuating circumstances like first time offenders, young people or those in minor roles. That means more people caught are getting fines, probation or community sentences instead of prison. It gives lower level gang members a chance to avoid jail, lessens their punishments and provides a crack in the system or an opportunity for the street networks and gangs to survive and grow and exploit. Now all this has been widely debated in Sweden right now, and I think the past two or three or four years, even at this moment in 2025. But this was certainly the case back then for sure. I don't think it's really changed though. There's a lot of debates about moving the age, I think the 15 thing to 13. So I think there's a lot of that going on. But we'll get to that next episode when I catch us up. And the gangs, they're not idiots, right? They figure all this out. So what they do is they start hiring and sending teenagers to do their hits. We're talking 13, 14, 15, 16 year olds becoming Sweden's gangland sicarios. And that's what Salihu means when he talks about an epidemic of child soldiers that I mentioned earlier. So Death Patrol and shot us. They release a wave of these child hitmen for bombings, shootings, hits, all that. Do we. Do we go into the bombings already? I think. You know what, I'll get to that. I'll get to that later on too. Sorry, I'm pushing a lot back. There's just a lot to cover here and we have two episodes to get through it.
- [39:04]
B
Yeah. Interesting sidebar as well. Like Both sort of 6 out of 10 gang names, nothing special. Could try harder. But I guess when you're in Sweden, I mean, their most favorite famous band ever is just the first letters of the people's names. Right? So the bar's pretty low. Are there any other Swedish bands like the Hives? Not. Great name, the Cardigan's Average. I mean, I'm showing my age here. Are there any like up to date Swedish bands that you've heard of?
- [39:28]
A
Cardigan's, the one who did. Who did Love Fool.
- [39:30]
B
Yes.
- [39:31]
A
Great.
- [39:32]
B
In what, the late 90s?
- [39:34]
A
Yeah, it was in the Romeo and Juliet movie. Yeah, Incredible movie. Fantastic song. I had something about Sweden gangs to say oh, actually, I think Death Patrol is a pretty. A pretty solid name, but I think shot us with a Z at the end is. Is like a. I mean, come on, buddy.
- [39:50]
B
Yeah, that's.
- [39:50]
A
That's.
- [39:51]
B
It's juvenile. That's what that is.
- [39:53]
A
Over the next few years, there's close to a dozen murders. Back to the murders. Over the next few years, there's close to a dozen murders committed in the war between Shadows and Death Patrol. Swedish Police eventually identify four leaders of death patrol in 2019. They're all eventually caught and given long sentences. But the wars continue in 2020. It even spreads to Denmark when five members of death Patrol, which are basically a hit squad, including two, travel to Copenhagen to take out two members of Shadas who had fled there for their safety. They commit a double murder. They take the two out, which royally pisses off the Danes. And this is a big thing now, too. We'll get to the more international angle when we dive into the war between the Kurdish Fox and Strawberry next episode, and the internal foxtrot war. But in Scandinavia, the other countries like Denmark, Finland, they're starting to get super pissed off at Sweden for its lax enforcement and inability to curb the gang wars that start spreading to their neighbors. And sort of Sweden's homegrown gangs are expanding their territory into countries like Finland and Denmark.
- [40:53]
B
Yeah. It might be worth pointing out now that if you don't know, Malmo, Malmo, whatever. And Copenhagen, they're basically like twin cities, right? They're separated by eight miles of sea and a bridge in the middle. Hence the show. The bridge, which was really good, was.
- [41:08]
A
I, like, almost the same place they redid it for Juarez and El Paso, I think. In the States.
- [41:13]
B
Yeah. Yeah, right.
- [41:14]
A
The central plot, there's like a murder and the bodies found on the bridge. I never watched the States one, though. Or maybe I tried to, and I didn't love it.
- [41:19]
B
I didn't watch it. But I've heard good stuff about it, actually. But it's. Yeah, they're like. I don't.
- [41:24]
A
The Swedish, Denmark.
- [41:26]
B
Yes. Gandhi noir thing. Yeah, it's pretty good. But there's like. I don't know. We were talking about that jurisdictional thing between, like, what, Alabama and Mississippi or whatever it was a few weeks ago. I mean, how has it worked with these Tennessee guys in.
- [41:37]
A
Well, that's why they made a show about it.
- [41:39]
B
Correct.
- [41:40]
A
I think the d. No, the Danes. If the Danes catch them in their territory, it's Danish justice, which, you know, they do catch them. And Denmark actually has learned its lesson. From the biker wars, the 80s and 90s. So their criminal justice system does not play around. They're, they're not as lenient. The Danish court determined that the double murder is part of that gang conflict between Death Patrol and Shadows, which means they can use special gang legislation for the trial. So the five, they get heavy sentences, including life imprisonment for some, which I believe is a bit more serious in Denmark than in Sweden. The Danes also ratchet up their border patrol for the first time in a long time on that bridge, trying to keep the Swedish gang wars from further spilling over. One of the people identified as a leader of Death Patrol who was caught in this is named Muhammad Ali, who goes by Michelelli. Who is that, Sean? He's a soccer player, right?
- [42:27]
B
Yeah. Claude McAlele. He defined the position that I now play in, which is defensive midfield. Played for Chelsea, Real Madrid. He was incredible and apparently incredible in the showers as well. But yeah, this guy, I looked him up, he doesn't look like Maculele at all. He's like someone stretched him out and vacuum packed him. So not very good.
- [42:48]
A
Anyway, that guy makes headlines a few years ago when he tries to renounce his Swedish citizenship and get the Danes to deport him to Somalia instead of Sweden, but they do not go for it. And I doubt Somali prisons have PS5s or whatever they get in Sweden, but they probably are a lot easier to bribe your way out of.
- [43:06]
B
I mean, I've actually been inside a Somali prison. I think I'd take my chances with the Swedes, to be honest.
- [43:12]
A
Maybe. I mean, I assume he was fearing a piece of attacks on him or something like that, but okay. Besides all the murdering though, these gangs, they make their money from drugs. And the market for drugs has exploded in Sweden and the region in recent years. Sweden's got a great location to pump into the rest of Scandinavia, a relatively wealthy population and like I said, lacks enforcement on drug dealing with making it a pretty attractive market. And they, they like to party. And these gangs now have connections to get a pure larger supply, whether it's in the Balkans, Netherlands are big, Morocco, Spain, you know, there's big money to be made here. Now, around the time that that trial is playing out In Denmark in 2020, 2021, there's yet another murder that absolutely shocked Sweden. And the reason it shocked Sweden is not just because it's another 19 year old gunned down, but because the teenager who was murdered is one of the country's biggest music stars, a rapper named Einar. Einar. Einar. Einar who had set streaming records for Sweden and won awards. He was essentially the biggest rap star in Sweden at the time of his murder. So Swedish gangster rap, you know, becomes a thing in the 2010s. And much like you find in recent years with the drill scene in Chicago and the Bronx and Brooklyn, many of these rappers are either tied in with gangs or gang members themselves. I actually thought all the Swedish rappers were gonna be like drill rappers themselves or drill guys, but I listened to a few of their songs and they kind of mostly sound like Drake and Juice World knockoffs. But some of it, some of it is catchy, I'm not gonna lie. The songs and the Instagram accounts, you know, they become fodder for the gang. Gossip blogs, you know, they're used for recruitment. They're calling out enemies, they're starting beef. It's a familiar pattern, except with Sweden. I kind of feel like maybe there's a level of ineptitude with the police where you don't see that in Chicago or New York, like, they're on it. That's my personal opinion, but I think it bears out, says Hugo, quote, the fact is that the majority of notable gangster rappers in Sweden are connected to a gang in some way or another, often functioning as propaganda arm of. As a propaganda arm of their respective gang.
- [45:12]
B
Yeah, this is like. Wasn't this similar to the kind of thing you were talking about in Marseille as well? Right. It was like all LinkedIn gangs music. There's a lot of that mixing going on, slinging.
- [45:22]
A
I think they're actually members that. Whereas, like, you know, back in the day and like in New York and LA, I feel like in 80s and 90s, the gangster rappers were not so much gangsters themselves, but like getting extorted by gangsters. Yeah, that was like a big thing. But in Sweden, it sounds like they're actually. I mean, they're also just little kids running around with guns.
- [45:39]
B
But.
- [45:39]
A
But you get it. So, yeah, you get the social media pages and the message boards too. You know, they treat these gang members like celebrities, gang wars, like sports teams. And they even start using the term gangfluencer in Sweden around 2021. I think it becomes like a something with like the Swedish Language association, whatever you want to call it. So Einar, this guy, he grows up in Stockholm. I've seen some stuff say he grew up in like a nice area. Others say he was in trouble as a young guy and lived in a Swedish group home or the Swedish version of a group home. But he is involved. Someone in street life or just kind of cultivates that image. He pals around with some other prominent gangster rappers in Sweden, like a guy named Yasin Bin, who by all accounts is heavily involved with Shotas. By 2019, after like a year or two of being active, he's 16 years old and arguably the biggest pop star in Sweden. He releases his debut album, Forsta Class, and it's a massive success. His single Katin I Trachten tops the Swedish charts in 2019, and he becomes Sweden's most streamed artist on Spotify that year. More than Abba, more than the Cardigans, more than the Hives. In 2020, he is Swedish House Mafia. Actually, they're not Swedish, right?
- [46:48]
B
I think they are. I think they are. They maybe.
- [46:50]
A
I thought they were like, I know a bunch of guys from Long Island.
- [46:53]
B
They were good. They were Swedish, actually. Which means fight club in Swedish.
- [46:57]
A
Anyway, I know number one, 2019. In 2020, he wins newcomer of the year and hip hop act of the year at Sweden's versions of the Grammys. So this kid, he is a star.
- [47:08]
B
Yeah. I looked up. I looked up what Katon e Tracton means and apparently it's like neighborhood cat or like a household cat or something. I mean, he's rapping in Swedish, right? He's not in English. So, yeah, you know, integration pretty good.
- [47:21]
A
It's catchy. No, but he's. He's Swedish. He's like a Swedish Swedish kid. Like, he's not the kid of immigrants. He's like a Sweden, Sweden.
- [47:28]
B
Oh, he's like a, you know, a white Swedish kid.
- [47:31]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, he falls into some traps because In May of 2020, when he's only 17 years old, he's kidnapped. This episode is brought to you by 20th Century Studios upcoming comedy Ella McKay. From Academy Award winning writer director James L. Brooks. Emma Mackey plays Ella McKay, an idealistic young woman who juggles family and work.
- [47:54]
B
In a story about the people you.
- [47:56]
A
Love and how to survive them. Featuring an all star cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Loudon, Kumail Nanjani, Iowa.
- [48:04]
B
Debris Julie Julie Kafner.
- [48:05]
A
With Albert Brooks and Woody Harrelson. Ella McKay. Only in theaters Friday. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are.
- [48:13]
B
Back in Disney's freakier Friday, now streaming on Disney.
- [48:18]
A
We switched bodies. I am freaking out right now. I think I just peed a little. It's an absolute riot and the only movie that can be described as so much weirder than the last song. What? Last time, it's the frequel.
- [48:32]
B
You ready?
- [48:33]
A
We've been waiting for. That absolutely slays Disney's freakier Friday now streaming on Disney. Rated pg. This episode is brought to you by Marketa. When it comes to your payments provider, you can't afford to compromise. Marketa's modern payment solutions flex with your business without the trade offs. Stable and agile, Secure and innovative. Scalable and configurable. If they say you can't have it all, don't believe them. Your business demands more. Choose a payments provider that delivers more. Choose Marketa. Visit Marketa.com Spotify to learn more. One of the prominent gangs, the Varby Network, that's the thing. The gangs in Sweden go are called networks a lot. They want to kidnap him outside of a studio, but they fail. But two weeks later, they succeed. Einar is actually set up by two prominent rapper buddies, Yassin, who we mentioned earlier, and another famous gangster rapper named Haval Khalil. They tell him to come to the studio to do a collab, and then he's just grabbed up. They take him somewhere, they rob him of his jewelry, they beat him, and they make him dress up in women's underwear, where they take a video of it to use as blackmail, threatening to expose him and destroy his street cred. Unless he pays them $300,000, he's held for hours. He refuses to pay the extortion fee. I think that actually happens too. After he's let go, the extortion attempt, they also plant a bomb outside his house and he still refuses to pay.
- [49:56]
B
Yeah, I mean, in Berlin, this is considered foreplay. You pay for this.
- [50:00]
A
Having beating someone and making them wear women's underwear. Yeah, yeah.
- [50:04]
B
But, yeah, stuff as well.
- [50:07]
All of it.
- [50:08]
A
So, you know, there's, there's multiple reports that say who did this. Some say it's the Dalin Network, which plays a central role in next week's episode. They were involved in the kidnapping. The gangling stuff in Sweden, it seems like relatively loose. Like I keep mentioning, like a lot of these guys seem to move around different gangs, work together, fight each other, shift, break alliances, all that. The kidnapping of Einar, it does start a cycle of diss tracks and threats between him and his enemies. It's all over YouTube, it's all over Instagram. You know the drill. In April the following year, Haval, that other rapper, his brother, is shot and killed in what some people believe is retaliation for the kidnapping. Soon after, both Yassin and Haval are sentenced to prison for their involvement in the kidnapping. Yassin gets, I think, a few months and Haval Khalil gets two and a half years INAR though around this time, I think it's 2021, he's still being targeted, right? In more incidents. There's shootings near him, threats against him and his family. His mother speaks out publicly about how she fears he's going to get killed. His friends are telling him he should leave Sweden or at least disappear for a while. The Swedish police later reveal they had intelligence suggesting that there was an active plot to harm him involving multiple individuals across different criminal networks. So, like I said, a bunch of different gangs, but Swedish law enforcement, again operating in a country where they have these strong privacy protections and limited surveillance capabilities compared to other countries, struggle to prevent what's obviously coming. In early October 2021, he's arrested after being involved in a stabbing. And the week after that he's scheduled to testify in an appeal hearing about his own kidnapping. He's actually refused to testify at the initial trial. He was very public about not wanting to participate in the appeal either. But he never actually makes it to court because on October 21, 2021, he shot and killed in an upscale Stockholm neighborhood, instantly becoming one of Sweden's most notorious murders. It's clear from the start he was tracked and targeted. And most speculation points to the shadows. Quote, we heard Pom pom Pom said dumbly a rapper who was with him who was also a convicted rapist and member of the street gang Death Patrol and later I believe might have been suspected of being involved in setting up Inar.
- [52:13]
B
This is like completely off top. Well, it's not completely off topic. Let's let Po Pom pom pom Thing is interesting how different languages say stuff for different. Sounds like, did you know that in Germany they think a chicken says Kicky Ricky Ricky instead of like cockadoodle do. I can't remember what they say for a dog's woof, but it's not. It's not woof either. It's like completely different.
- [52:33]
A
Everyone the last few episodes who was like, we really like the banger. The banter is gonna just be like, actually, we changed our mind after this episode.
- [52:40]
B
Oh, wow. Wow. That's what they say.
- [52:42]
A
Wow.
- [52:42]
B
Wow. That's it.
- [52:43]
A
That's what. That's.
- [52:44]
B
Anyway, yeah, people are in here for that. I don't even know what that is as a subject. But yeah, I hope you enjoy our show.
- [52:52]
A
According to diamond.
- [52:56]
According to Diamant Saleho, quote, several rappers connected different gang criminal gangs have support from their respective gang since they oftentimes have grown up together with the gang members in our move between multiple different groupings and didn't have the same support, which made him more vulnerable. But even with Einar dad dead and the other rappers locked up, this feud continues to play out, especially since the gangs all fractured into smaller groups. A gang member who was with Inar at the time of his murder, and like I said, is suspected of leaking his location to the killers for a cut, was himself shot and killed outside his mother's apartment on Christmas Day 2022. The suspected shooter also had an IED detonated at the entrance to the apartment complex where he's listed.
- [53:36]
B
Yeah, so we're kind of moving from what gang fight into urban warfare. IDs.
- [53:43]
A
Yeah, the ID thing is interesting, right? It's. It's another interesting facet of the Swedish underworld. They love to blow things up. Homemade IEDs, stolen dynamite, copious amounts of grenades brought from the Balkans. It's like a daily part of life in some Neighborhoods now in 2024, there's 317 bombings in Sweden. One a day, pretty much. Sweden now has more grenade attacks per capita than any country in Europe not actively at war. And I think, in fact, according to Swedish criminologists, the only other country that even tracks hand grenade explosions like Sweden does is, is Mexico. And you guys know how that goes. There's even like a if you see something, say something campaign there. According to Hugo, most of the bombings take place in the cities and they're usually set off at night and they're usually not intended to kill someone. Right. They're used for intimidation and coercion. Usually let a target know that they can be gotten. That's why so many occur at these. The main entrances of apartment complexes where gang members live. They also target the homes of family members of gang members or businesses and people that are being extorted, which is another way the gangs make money. And they're starting to do that a lot more. They're moving into the old school Mafia stuff, extortion rackets, right? Going after small businesses or restaurants, nightclubs that are owned by rival gang members. But a lot of like barbershops, car washes, gyms, arcades, the sort of kiosks they have in Europe. They, they, they'll get this demand for protection money. My assumption too is that a lot of them are immigrant owned because. Or probably from the same community, because that's just how, how it works with, with organized crime.
- [55:11]
B
Right?
- [55:12]
A
So they'll turn down the protection money at first. They get bombed. Just the classic Mafia tactics and the guns though too. There are a lot of them for Europe. In January 2021, the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime release a report that claims most of the guns come from Serbian guns that traffic through family outfits and biker gangs. Most of them come across the bridge from Copenhagen. Hand grenades sell for just $12. And a third of all illegal handguns on Swedish streets are Serbian. Zastrava. Zastravas. How do you say it, John?
- [55:44]
B
Yeah, perfect. I don't know. Serbo pro. It's not my forte, but I mean that, that, that $12 thing is nuts for a grenade. I mean, I read some bad sources online and apparently it cost between 50 and 100 to get a frag grenade on the black market in the US.
- [55:59]
A
Which that's, there's no way that's true. I don't know, like 20 times that much. You reckon you're not getting a grenade for. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. You're not gonna grenade for cheap here.
- [56:10]
Continue using occ.
- [56:11]
B
Waste of money. God.
- [56:13]
A
I mean, I, I assume I've never had to purchase a grenade, but I assume I don't think I know anyone who has. On the black market, no guns, yes, but not, not, not. So I assume the prices are quite high. Continues. An OCCRP story. Quote, groups receiving arms from these traffickers include Swedish biker gangs and family based drug syndicates. Others include youth gangs among Sweden's Somali diaspora, as well as a notorious group of loan sharks that has exploited its own community of Orthodox Christian immigrants from the Middle east for decades. That might be your Syriacs right there, but I'm not sure.
- [56:45]
B
Yeah, sounds right.
- [56:46]
A
I don't want to rush the judgment, but back to the violence. INR isn't the only prominent Swedish rapper to be gunned down. In 2024, another successful rapper named C. Gambino was shot dead in a parking garage weeks after winning a prestigious Grammy award. That's the Swedish Grammy Award.
- [57:02]
B
Yeah, that's. That's a pretty harsh sentence for plagiarism. Childish Gambino is a Swedish gangster. What the hell?
- [57:08]
A
I think he just. Gambino? Who knows another rapper, Gaborro. I think he was Syrian. He was gunned down in a parking lot as well later that year and it was all over social media. In 2023, a teenage rapper named Aduli was gunned down at a sports pitch while children were training nearby. And in 2019, rapper Rose Shamal was murdered while walking his dog. His brother had been killed the year before, but yeah. Back to Death Patrol and the Shadows. Death Patrol fractures. But an element of it continues to this day. Their operations aren't limited to Sweden. The gang has expanded into Finland, Denmark and Morocco, smuggling cocaine and hashish from Spain and Morocco into the Nordic region. Finnish authorities broke up a major death patrol drug operation in 2023, seizing over 350 kilos of drugs and €250,000 in cash. So 350 kilos is not a small amount. The investigation revealed that the gang was systematically bringing drugs through Sweden into Finland, where they would be sold to street gangs in major cities. And these gangs too, the reason they're so impactful is they kind of serve as the inspiration for other young men and teens in Sweden hoping to live that life. Right. It really is like a, like a social contagion. This sort of stuff always has been when, like I said, but when you factor in social media too, you have a lot of other gangs sort of springing up, right? The Bro network, the Dalin network, the Norrisburg network tends to Network. Hosbee Network, 24K, and as we're going to hear, Foxtrot and then the Roomba network, they all fight over territory, they recruit teenagers, they send out hits while trying to make cash from the drug game. By the 2000s, cops in Sweden estimate there's 200 or so gangs like them in Sweden and 62,000 people connected to the life or involved in some capacity, which is out of a population of 10.6 million in the entire country.
- [58:56]
B
That's nuts, man. I mean, I guess like you kind of like gone over this a little bit, but the keys in the fact they ship into Finland, right, that there's such a market for these guys. Like Malmo is right next to Copenhagen, which is right near northern Germany. You've got Hamburg, the port there, Bremerhaven, and then it's a transshipment point from the Netherlands and Germany into Scandinavia. I guess my only question is why the Danes haven't been so successful on that then why it's left to the Swedes. But I guess, I don't know, better policing maybe. The sort of experience of the biker wars has made them crack down a lot harder over there.
- [59:32]
A
I think they've cracked down hard for sure on homegrown gangs there. And I think that it's easier for the Swedes because they can go in and out. But they definitely, I, I don't know if they actually control the, the drug trade in Copenhagen. I know they've tried to expand, but like we said, they got caught.
- [59:47]
Like Denmark also has its own biker gang. Situation there too as well. And I'm sure some of these gangs too, you know. Yeah, probably their own. Their own iteration. So the gang that really takes Sweden's underworld to the next level, that shocks the country even more and changes everything and actually stretches across the world to Turkey, Iraq, Dubai, and even gets involved with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and gets sanctioned by the US as a terrorist organization. And that gang is Foxtrot and led by the Kurdish Fox and his second in command and now deadly rival Strawberry. And that story is going to be told in the next episode because we are out of time.
- [60:27]
B
Wow. It gets crazier.
- [60:28]
A
It gets so much crazier. But yeah. Patreon.com session or a podcast, bonus episodes. Everything else you want there. Underworld pod.com for merch the Underworld podcast gmail.com let us know what you guys want to see and hear and how we can convince you to give us more money.
- [60:47]
B
That's might be pithy. Outros.
- [60:49]
A
Yeah, this this guy.
- [62:06]
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