A murder suspect believed to be the second-in-command of Sweden’s notorious Foxtrot criminal network has been arrested in Tunisia.
Mohamed Mohdhi was on the list of Europe’s most wanted fugitives but Swedish police have now told The National that he has been detained in the North African country.
The 28-year-old is the number two to Rawa Majid, a gangster of Kurdish origin who founded the Foxtrot network, Swedish broadcaster SVT reported.
Majid, the 39-year-old self-styled "Kurdish Fox", has brought unprecedented violence to the Scandinavian nation, which now has one of the highest murder rates in Europe.
Mr Mohdhi is a “high-value target” suspected of several serious violent crimes in the country, including murder, say Swedish police.
Niclas Andersson, head of the investigation unit at the National Operations Department, said: “We assess this as a strategically important arrest that we believe will affect the criminal network's ability to carry out violent crime.”
The arrest was made by Tunisian officers over the weekend, shortly after a visit to the country by Swedish government officials and police.
Swedish police said they “would like to thank the Tunisian law enforcement authorities for their quick and resolute action”.
Mr Mohdhi, a rapper who performs under the name Moewgli, is suspected of involvement in the murder of a 15-year-old boy at a sushi restaurant in January 2023, among other offences.
He was arrested as part of the Swedish-led Europol Operation Taskforce Grimm, which targets “violence-as-a-service”, in which criminal acts, including shootings and bombings, are ordered and co-ordinated over social media platforms.
The phenomenon emerged in Sweden, where teenagers are increasingly recruited in this way because the age of criminal responsibility means they cannot be sent to prison.
It has been identified as the means that Iran has used to recruit people through the Foxtrot network, to carry out attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets, initially in Sweden and Denmark. As a result, Majid has been sanctioned by the US and the UK.
Recent attacks in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the UK by a group calling itself Harakat Ashab Al Yamin Al Islamia, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right Hand, are believed to have been organised using the “violence-as-a-service” model.
The group is widely believed to be an Iranian front and The National has revealed the ease by which it can recruit online.
