Sweden’s Security Service Säpo confirmed on Thursday that the Iranian regime is recruiting criminals to conduct attacks on Jewish targets in the Scandinavian country. This corroborates earlier intelligence reports from Israel’s spy agency Mossad.
At a joint press conference with the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm, Swedish counter-intelligence chief Daniel Stenling described Iran as wanting to use “criminal networks” as “proxies.” He indicated Iran’s chargé d’affaires would be summoned to a meeting on Friday to answer the claims.
Stenling was short on exact details but confirmed that security measures were being increased on potential Jewish targets. Mossad has already indicated that underworld networks in Europe could be weaponised against the upcoming Summer Olympics in Paris.
Iran is alleged to have recruited infamous Kurdish gang leader Rawa Majid to oversee future attacks in Sweden—a country already plagued by shocking levels of gang-related crime due to decades of mismanaged migration policy.
Known by his criminal nom de guerre ‘The Kurdish Fox’, the 37-year-old Majid is a kingpin in the so-called Foxtrot gang, known for shootings, drug dealing, and extortion around Stockholm. Currently, the crime boss is based in Iran after fleeing there from Turkey in September. The Kurdish gangster first prompted the interest of Mossad following a failed grenade attack on the Israeli embassy in Stockholm following Hamas’ October 7th massacres.
Ismail Abdo, a former associate of Majid’s, is also suspected of being in the pay of the Iranians. Authorities are already linking the rival criminal networks to antisemitic attacks in Sweden, where they expressed particular concern about the use of underage assets and the risk posed to Iranian dissident groups based in Sweden.
This is not the first time Iran has been embroiled in terror plots in Sweden. In 2019, Swedish police arrested Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi for his role in planning to bomb a rally of Iranian dissidents in Paris.
Sweden and Iran have been in a fraught diplomatic standoff over the kidnapping of Swedish-born EU diplomat Johan Floderus, who has languished in a Tehran prison since April 2022.
