Swedish police leads EU campaign against gang recruitment
Stockholm – Several European countries – led by the Swedish police – will cooperate to try to prevent the digital recruitment of young people into criminal networks.
In addition to Sweden and Europol, Norway, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and France are part of what is called Operation Grimm, the police report.
The aim is to map out roles, money flows, and recruitment among network criminals through joint investigations.
The idea is to identify and take action against criminal service providers, among other things through collaborations with tech companies, and to identify and prevent digital recruitment. Those being recruited are often children and young people, with no previous connections to criminal networks.
Once recruited, the gangs exploit the children to carry out a range of different criminal tasks, from drug trafficking to bombings and murders for payment.
(April 29)
