After Sweden’s closest neighbors last month sounded the alarm about the country’s rampant gang criminality spreading across the borders, now even Iceland—located over 2,000 kilometers away, as the crow flies—is complaining about being targeted by Swedish gangs.
When justice ministers of the Nordic countries met last Friday, the problem of organized crime topped the agenda—particularly the criminal activity based in Sweden.
“There are criminal groups in Sweden that have sent people to Iceland to commit crimes,” Iceland’s justice minister Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir told Swedish media.
As an example, Hafsteinsdóttir cited an attack directed at a police officer, whose car was set on fire in August of last year—a deed carried out on orders from a Swedish gang.
“We have confirmed information about a group of individuals who came here for this purpose,” Runólfur Thórhallsson from the Icelandic police’s analysis unit told Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið. As in previous cases in Denmark and Norway, potential perpetrators were offered a defined sum of money online for committing the crime.
The gang identified as responsible for ordering the burning of the police car comes from Trollhättan, a Swedish city of around 60,000, and is “multinational but has been led by Palestinians,” Morgunblaðið reports. “Therefore, it is perhaps unfair to say that this comes from Sweden,” Thórhallsson said. “This is an activity that consists of different nationalities and is all around us.”
That particular gang is only one criminal organization trying to establish itself in the small island nation. “There are 8-12 gangs we put the label ‘foreign criminal groups’ on,” Thórhallsson said. “But at least 15-18 criminal groups are operating in this country.” So far, the gangs operating in Iceland appear to have a tacit agreement, but there are fears this could change.
“We do not see a strong trend in this direction. But this is something that we need to think carefully about, that this can happen to us. We see this in the countries around us. There are brutal conflicts between criminal groups,” he said.
Iceland has seen examples of children—especially immigrant children—recruited to commit crimes, though so far, not the type of violent crimes reported in Sweden and Denmark.
“We are hearing from police officers who are out on the street that there have been group formations around shopping centers. There are children under the age of 18. There are no confirmed cases of serious crimes, but they are being used for stealing things.”
Justice minister Hafsteinsdóttir announced in a TV interview on Sunday evening that her country will implement tighter border controls.
