Panic as migrant children recruited by criminal gangs and armed with grenades

Migrant children in Norway are being recruited by gangs and armed with grenades (Image: Getty)

Sweden's vicious mafia has spilt across the border and is now wreaking havoc in Norway, where teenagers - mostly from migrant backgrounds - are being recruited by gangs and armed with grenades to carry out contract hits. The minors, who have been left vulnerable to criminal networks after a failure of integration, are being recruited by one of Europe's most notorious networks, which has strong ties to Iran.

The minors are being recruited by Foxtrot, whose leadership acts on behalf of the Ayatollah's regime to target victims. In the evening of September 23, multiple grenades exploded outside a nail salon in Bislett, Oslo, which shattered windows and punctured its walls with shrapnel. Police linked two 13-year-old boys to the attack and suspected that they were recruited via TikTok, supplied with smuggled grenades and paid 30,000 NOK (£2,000) to carry out the attack. Within weeks, two more Foxtrot-linked attacks followed.

Military police outside the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen as police investigate two explosions (Image: Getty)

Due to a Scandinavian legal loophole, children under the age of 15 cannot be held criminally responsible, making minors the ideal recruits to carry out attacks on behalf of the Foxtrot crime ring. One week after the Bislett attack, three boys aged 12, 13 and 14 were linked to a shooting incident in Sarpsborg in eastern Norway, close to the Swedish border. A week later, a 15-year-old was suspected of throwing a grenade at a sushi restaurant in Strømmen, 12 miles east of Oslo.

"It appears that the original contact was established on TikTok," Norwegian police attorney Henrik Rådal told NRK in relation to the grenade attack in Bislett.

The syndicate is deliberately hiring vulnerable children to carry out its crimes, whether that's due to their economic status or conditions at home. But, Norwegian MPs have also linked the rise in child gang crime to a major increase in mass migration, arguing that many feel poorly integrated into society, making them susceptible to manipulation by criminal networks.

"We have to be honest about something here: most of these kids have migration backgrounds," an MP for the opposition Conservative party, told The Telegraph. "The government has not been able to put up a formidable defence [...] they’ve become blind to the situation."

Around 70 Swedish gangs are now thought to be operating in Norway, where teenagers are being anonymously hired on apps like Telegram (Image: Getty)

Over the last three decades, the number of immigrants living in Norway has increased from approximately 4% of the population to 16% as of January 2024.

Foxtrot emerged in Sweden at the end of the 2010s and is led by Rawa Majid, also known as the "Kurdish Fox", who has been sanctioned by the UK for his role in attacks across Europe on behalf of the Iranian regime. Majid, who is understood to live under the protection of the Ayatollah and has been involved in violent plots, particularly against Jewish and Israeli targets.

For example, the US believes the Foxtrot regime was responsible for orchestrating the thwarted attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, on behalf of Iran in January 2024, when a "dangerous object" was found outside the building and destroyed by police. As well as violent crimes, Foxtrot is also a prominent drug trafficking organisation, being the biggest heroine supplier in Sweden and with a cocaine drug mule network that has expanded into Denmark and Norway since the pandemic.

Foxtrot is one of around 70 Swedish gangs now thought to be operating in Norway, where teenagers are being anonymously hired on encrypted messaging apps like Telegram. They are often paid between £20,000 and £60,000 for a hit, using hand grenades or improvised explosives smuggled into the country.