Sweden panic as it tries to rush through law to wiretap kids as gang violence spikes

Sweden is currently grappling with a wave of gang crime involving teenagers, hired for offences ranging from spying and vandalism to bombings and murder.

In an attempt to get a grip on the crisis, the government plans to rush through legislation allowing police to wiretap children under 15, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson announced on Thursday (January 30).

The original plan was to have the law ready by the summer of 2026, but the legislation’s pace has now changed dramatically.

“We are pushing the legislation to enter into force in the fall of 2025 … This is important to get at those who often sit far away and order crimes of children in Sweden,” said Kristersson at a press conference after an unusual meeting with the country’s council against organised crime.

Teenagers are being increasingly hired by gangs through social media, particularly Telegram, to commit crime.January alone saw more than 30 bomb attacks.

“During the month of January, there has been an average of one blast per day. That trend must of course be broken,” Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said on Wednesday.

Explosions in Stockholm have become so frequent the city’s estate agents are listing “no bombings” in their “pro” columns when advertising properties for neighbourhoods buyers might be unfamiliar with.

One blast last month saw an elderly man lose his leg, while one last year resulted in a 20-year-old recently graduated teacher being killed.

According to the police, many of the teenagers are very young and are being hired from abroad. Based on the police data, around 600 criminals targeting Sweden live abroad.

“We see 12-, 13- and 14-year-olds carry out horrific violent assignments as if they were extra jobs,” said Sweden’s national police chief Petra Lundh. “The assignments are communicated completely openly on digital marketplaces. Crime is often controlled by gang criminals who are abroad.”

Prime Minister Kristersson said that Sweden is working with countries like Turkey, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates to get gang leaders based there extradited.

Sweden is also attempting to crack down on the tech platforms to force them to stop gang recruitment and has asked the European Union to step in, according to Politico.

The country reportedly also has as many as 61 “no-go” zones, which are so overrun by violence that police cannot carry out their duties there. They are now being described as “parallel societies”.

Data published last year showed that Sweden’s gang violence has escalated to the point where its homicide rate linked to warfare between organised criminal groups is now one of the biggest in Europe.

Last May, Göran Adamson, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Uppsala University told Express.co.uk that the country is bordering on “civil war” and that his country was becoming a “capital of violence”.