Teenage girls are hiring themselves out as hitwomen in
Sweden's organized crime wars, keen to prove they are more deadly and ruthless than young men, prosecutors say.
"I had a case involving a 15-year-old girl recruited to shoot someone in the head," Stockholm prosecutor Ida Arnell told AFP. "She was able to choose the type of mission she wanted, in other words, to aim at the guy's door or his head. She chose the head."
She was arrested with a 17-year-old male accomplice, who pulled the trigger, leaving the victim clinging to life after being shot in the neck, stomach and legs.
Arnell said an increasing number of girls are offering their services to mobsters, including as hitwomen, on encrypted messaging sites.
Girls "have to show that they are even more determined and tougher (than boys) to get the job," the prosecutor added.
Some 280 girls aged between 15 and 17 were charged with murder, manslaughter or other violent crimes last year — though it is unclear how many were linked to organized crime.
The statistic is far from a blip, experts say, with the role of girls and young women in the violent organized crime networks that are plaguing the Scandinavian nation slipping under the radar for years.
They say this blind spot has benefitted the crime networks and put young women at extreme risk.
Kids under 15 hired to kill
Shootings and bombings are a near-daily occurrence with organized crime often recruiting teenagers under 15 — the age of criminal responsibility — to do their dirty work on encrypted apps.
"In general the young kids are thirsty for blood on these chats," regardless of their gender, Arnell said.
Sweden was once known for low crime, but the gangs — who emerged over the last 15 years — have changed all that with drug and arms trafficking, welfare fraud and human trafficking, authorities say.
The government now calls them a "systemic threat" to the country.
They are even reported to have infiltrated Sweden's welfare sector, local politics, legal and education systems, and juvenile detention care.
Police say the leaders of the loose networks increasingly orchestrate operations from abroad, relying on intermediaries to carry out their vendetta.
Hits, shootings, beatings and bombings are often contracted out and put up for grabs on encrypted sites.
"Girls are often identified as victims ... but their participation in criminal circles is much more widespread than what we have long assumed," Sweden's Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said in April, admitting a lack of research into the problem.
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