Gang criminal teenagers carried weapons outside district court – remanded in custody

It was on Wednesday morning that a police patrol found a weapon when two teenage boys were checked outside the Attunda District Court in Sollentuna, north of Stockholm. On Friday, they were arrested on probable cause on suspicion of serious weapons offences.

The police are investigating possible connections to ongoing trials. According to information to Expressen, one of the investigators’ theories is that the teenagers were interested in the case regarding an explosion in Hässelby in Stockholm last year. The case has links to the Foxtrot network.

Prosecutor Johanna Strid does not want to comment on the connection to the trial. She says the police are also looking at possible targets, but that it is still too early in the investigation to comment.

In the remand petition the identities of the suspects are confidential. Johanna Strid confirms that it is about two minor boys. According to information to DN, it is about a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old, both living in Växjö.

The 16-year-old was recently sentenced to youth care for serious weapons offenses and serious illegal threats after shooting into a residence in Helsingborg last year.

“Fortunately, the apartment was uninhabited and the shooting only caused material damage there, but the plaintiff’s information shows that the incident led to great anxiety and insecurity,” the district court wrote in the verdict.

The 17-year-old has also recently been convicted of serious weapons offenses after carrying a semi-automatic pistol in a public place in Växjö.

Local police assess that the 16-year-old is a member of a criminal network in the city, according to a personal investigation the Correctional Service did last year.

The Växjö policeman Emir Bajric works particularly with a focus on Araby, which is classified as a “risk area”. He states that the boys are well known to the police from before and that both are part of a network based in the district.

– It is about a local network that has existed since 2016-2017. In the beginning, it was dealing with drugs, but since a couple of years ago, the group has started committing serious violent crimes. Now a couple are convicted of murder and other crimes.

He estimates that the network consists of between 40 and 50 people, with different roles. The teenagers who were arrested outside the Attunda district court ended up on the police’s radar last summer. Emir Bajric describes them as performers.

– They are not runaways who sell drugs.

How did you react when they were arrested in Sollentuna?

– Since they have recently been convicted of serious crimes, one wonders how it can be like this. Why are they at large with the opportunity to commit new crimes? It’s a system error.

Emir Bajric has no insight into the ongoing weapons crime investigation and does not know why the boys have gone to the district court in Sollentuna.

At the same time, he states that the network in Araby has recently begun to move towards other types of activities than drug trafficking.

– We have understood that the members have started to take on murder contracts elsewhere in the country. Partly it depends on the money involved, partly on the power and status it gives.