Teenage contract killers: The terrifying strategy of outsourcing murder that threatens Europe

In a Stockholm suburb, a man dressed in black emerged from the winter night. Armed with a pistol, he approached Murad Abdelkader, a 20-year-old student who was returning home from his shift at McDonald's. The killer fired several shots before shooting him once more in the head as he lay on the ground.

The assassin was only 18 years old. And that February night, he shot the wrong person.

The teenager had agreed to carry out this contract for money, commissioned by the Foxtrot network . This Swedish criminal organization with international ramifications has become infamous for its so-called "violence on demand" or Violence-as-a-Service (VaaS) methods.

As reported by the BBC , which relies on police investigations and European security sources, the Foxtrot network is believed to be responsible since 2022 for approximately 35 assassinations, as well as several attacks and attempted attacks targeting Israeli interests in Europe.

The "gamification" of crime on social media

The distinctive feature of this strategy lies in the recruitment of very young, often vulnerable people, approached directly on social media. According to the BBC , citing the Europol OTF GRIMM intervention group , instructions are transmitted to these young people in a "gamified" way, mimicking the mechanics of video games.

Andy Kraag, head of Europol's European Organised Crime Centre, describes this phenomenon as "the calculated outsourcing of murder to vulnerable youths." But the reality behind the promises of big payouts is cynical: the masterminds almost never pay the teenage recruits, who are almost always arrested just before or just after they commit the crime.

This is illustrated by the case of Johannes Natland, an 18-year-old Norwegian teenager arrested in the UK with weapons and cash as he was preparing to carry out a hit near Huddersfield. According to the investigation reported by the BBC , the teenager was guided step by step via the encrypted messaging app Signal by intermediaries using pseudonyms inspired by video games, who sent him maps and explanatory videos to locate the weapons hidden in the forest.

Direct connections with the Iranian regime

The Foxtrot network is no longer limiting its activities to turf wars for control of the drug trade. According to information gathered by the BBC , the organization's leader, Rawa Majid, has taken refuge in Tehran, Iran.

Diamant Salihu, an investigative journalist for the Swedish media outlet SVT, interviewed by the BBC , explains that Rawa Majid's presence in Iran is based on an agreement with the local authorities: "The regime orders the head of the Foxtrot network to incite his network to carry out attacks against the enemies of the Iranian regime," whether they are dissidents, opposition journalists, or Israeli targets in Europe.

The international police response is being organized.

Faced with the spread of this criminal model across Scandinavia, Western Europe, and the United Kingdom, European police cooperation has intensified. The OTF GRIMM task force , which brings together 11 affected countries (including France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), has already made more than 280 arrests in 15 months.

Among the recent raids is the arrest in Iraq of Ali Shehad Ahmed, suspected of being the main intermediary operating under the pseudonym "Agent 47", as well as the arrest in Tunisia of Mohamed "Moewgli" Mohdhi, a former rapper considered to be an executive of the network.

However, as the BBC points out , the danger remains: other rival gangs have already begun to copy the Foxtrot method by continuing to recruit gullible teenagers to carry out deadly missions across the continent.