According to Deputy National Police Chief Mats Löfving, at least about 40 criminal clans are now active in Sweden, and these clans have migrated to Sweden for the purpose of obtaining power, making money, and further expanding their criminal syndicates.
“These clans have come to Sweden solely to organize crime. They work to create power, they have a great capacity for violence, and they want to make money. And they do that through drug crimes, violent crimes, and extortion,” said Löfving, who made remarks during an interview on Ekot’s Saturday program on Swedish Radio.
According to him, the clans have migrated to Sweden to not only to engage in crime but also to raise their children into a life of organized crime.
The police chief said that the increasingly serious gang crime is something the police have long warned about.
“What we are amazed at is that we believe this development was very clear since 2012. In 2015, we developed a method and mapped Sweden regarding these phenomena. As a result, we identified problematic areas. After that, we have made two further location updates of the situation in vulnerable areas,” explained Löfving.
According to Löfving, it is eight times more common for crimes to be committed in so-called vulnerable areas, and the factors that contribute to crime sometimes go far beyond what normally fall within the police’s area of responsibility.
“If we look at what characterizes those areas, there is a lack of integration, problems with housing, the labor market, schooling, and the social situation. And this is not part of the police’s mission,” added Löfving.
Clans raise their children to take control of the criminal organization
Gang crime has plagued Sweden in recent years, with a number of gang killings this year, including shootings that killed innocent bystanders as young a 12 years old, further fueling concern from the government and public about the effect of Sweden’s growing migrant community.
Löfving believes that the police do not feel that they have “society’s full support” in this matter, but that politicians and decision-makers “go yo-yo in their reasoning” and only respond to the issue when the media pressure becomes high enough.
He also believes that Swedes refuse to grasp the full threat they face, saying that “the discussion about integration can be a bit naive in Sweden”.
“The individual [in clans] is not important, but there are even cases when marriage is arranged to strengthen the clan. Besides, it is the case that the whole family, relatives or clan raise their children to take over the control of the criminal organization,” said Löfving, who added, “These children have no ambition to become part of society, but they have an ambition already from birth and growing up to take over the crime network.”
Löfving describes examples of families who have entered the business world, and also political life, in order to be able to govern a municipality or even at the federal level, but did not elaborate on specific instances.
“I can provide several examples of this type of families, or clans, operating in Stockholm, Södertälje, Gothenburg, Malmö as well as Landskrona and Jönköping. But if I start mentioning this in too much detail, it would mean that I advertise for these families, so I will not go into that. But there are plenty of examples.”
Just last month, Gustav Kasselstrand, president of the right-wing Alternative for Sweden (AfS), told Hungarian daily news outlet Magyar Hirlap that Sweden’s government and much of its media appear unwilling to make the connection with Sweden’s growing crime problem and its migrant community.
“The government seldom speaks of the criminality that is the result of its botched migration policy and even if it does, they won’t admit the connection between gang wars and immigration,” Kasselstrand said, adding that the government cannot formulate an adequate response. In his opinion, unless gang members are deported to their lands of origin, gang violence will keep rising.
