In brief
In a Stockholm suburb a black‑clad teenager with a handgun murdered a 20‑year‑old, proving the reach of the Foxtrot Network. 18‑year‑old Atilla Azimov, a former drug‑addict, was sentenced to life for a mistaken killing. The network banks on social‑media recruitment, offering cash and “gamified” instructions to young teens, a model known as violence‑as‑a‑service. Europol’s OTF GRIMM has made thousands of arrests, but the network’s leader remains in Iran, and other groups now use the same youth‑recruitment tactics.
The first line of the story came on a cold night in a Stockholm suburb when a man in all black, gun in hand, approached 20‑year‑old Murad Abdelkader, a student heading home from a night shift at McDonald’s. The gunman – 18‑year‑old Atilla Azimov – shot the victim repeatedly before killing him in the head. Azimov was arrested and later sentenced to life for this murder.
Azimov had become a paid killer the previous year when he mistakenly killed the wrong man. The young hitmen are recruited by the Foxtrot Network, a crime syndicate linked to the Iranian regime that profits from violence-as-a-service.
Since 2022, Foxtrot is suspected of 35 murders and several attacks on Israeli targets across Europe, including explosive incidents in Copenhagen. Their model uses social media to influence teenagers, offering money for “hits” and giving instructions in a gamified, game‑like format.
One of the most notorious cases involved Johannes Natland, a 18‑year‑old recruited by a teenage handler called “Generalen” to carry out a planned murder in the UK. National Police and Europol’s OTF GRIMM traced his journey through a logistics contact named “1”, who provided maps and videos of weapon caches and cash drops.
The recent crackdown by OTF GRIMM has led to more than 280 arrests, including key suspects such as the person believed to be Foxtrot’s “Agent 47”, Ali Shehad Ahmed. Ahmed was detained in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and is pending extradition to Sweden.
The leader of the Foxtrot Network, Rawa Majid, fled to Tehran in 2023 and is said to be directing attacks against the Iranian regime’s enemies, including journalists and Israelis. Although Majid remains elusive, Swedish police continue to pursue the network’s activities.
The Foxtrot model has spread rapidly across Scandinavia and northern Europe. Even rival groups such as the Dalen Network have adopted the same youth‑recruitment tactics, keeping the threat alive.
