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CRIME

British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe linked to unsolved Sweden murders

Peter Sutcliffe, the British serial killer known as the “Yorkshire Ripper” who was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others during the 1970s, has been connected to two unsolved murders in Sweden.

Published: 28 May 2017 17:44 CEST
British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe linked to unsolved Sweden murders
The police station in Leeds, United Kingdom, where Sutcliffe's investigation was conducted. Photo: Mtaylor848/Wikimedia commons

West Yorkshire Police connected Swedish authorities last year in relation to two unsolved murders of Swedish women, reports newspaper Kvällsposten.

“They wanted answers to a number of questions, including whether we have the type of murder, whether forensic evidence exists and whether there is anything that can be investigated using new techniques,” Bo Lundqvist, police commissioner with the Region South Police department for cold cases, told the newspaper.

“They also wanted to know whether Peter Sutcliffe was named in any investigations,” Lundqvist added.

The two crimes that British police wish to investigate are the murders of a 31-year-old woman, who was found in Gothenburg in August 1980, and a 26-year-old woman who was found in Malmö in September of the same year.

Lundqvist confirmed to Kvällsposten that Malmö Police did in fact contact British police in January 1981, after the media in Sweden had drawn attention to the fact that Peter Sutcliffe may have been in Malmö at the time of the 26-year-old's murder.

READ ALSO: Everything you need to know about the Swedish murder case that's stranger than fiction

The Swedish police communication reportedly coincided with Sutcliffe’s arrest and later conviction.

Interpol responded to Malmö Police, saying that Sutcliffe could not have been in the city at the time of the crime – information that the agency later found to be incorrect, according to the report.

According to a ferry passenger manifest, Sutcliffe was likely in Malmö at the time of the second Swedish murder. The manifest shows Sutcliffe’s name on board a service between Malmö and Dragør in Denmark on the days before and after the murder in the Swedish city, Lundqvist told the newspaper.

The police officer said that this information probably never reached the British police at the time of their investigation against Sutcliffe, and subsequently the Swedish connections were not followed up.

Sutcliffe, who worked as an HGV driver and was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper by the British press, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1981 for murdering 13 women between 1975 and 1980.

But after opening a review of unsolved crimes last year, West Yorkshire Police told Lundqvist that they were aware of a telex from Interpol indicating that Sutcliffe had travelled on the Malmö-Dragør ferry.

Malmö Police have previously confirmed that a hair which was found on the woman’s body has been preserved, according to the report.

Lundqvist responded to the British request but has not yet received any further information on the case, writes Kvällposten.

The decision to grant British authorities access to any forensic material will fall to the Swedish justice department, reports the newspaper.

Unsolved murders that date prior to 1985 are lapsed under Swedish law but not according to British legislation, Lundqvist said.

POLICE

Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

A new report in Dagens Nyheter has revealed over 514 suspected leaks of sensitive information from at least 30 members of the police force to criminals since 2018. Here's what we know so far.

Published: 30 April 2024 12:28 CEST
Updated: 30 April 2024 15:45 CEST
Swedish police leaks scandal: How gang criminals got hold of sensitive information

What’s happened?

According to an investigative report by newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN), multiple gang members have infiltrated the police force by, for example, dating police employees, or using family connections to gain access to sensitive information about ongoing cases.

The first article in DN’s series focuses on a woman the newspaper calls Elin, who met a man, Jonas (not his real name), on a dating app when she had one year left of her police education. She falls in love, but his only goal with the relationship is to get a source within the police force which he can use for access to secret information.

Over the course of four years until she was caught, she made multiple illegal searches in the police register for Jonas, his associates and enemies, as well as providing him with information on ongoing investigations against him.

Other cases investigated by the newspaper include a border guard who sold classified information to gangs, a police officer who leaked information to what DN describes as “one of Sweden’s most notorious criminals” and an investigator who was dating a man she was investigating, who she shared screenshots of sensitive information with.

In another case, the police received a tip-off that information was being leaked to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. It was discovered that a group of five alarm operators had made an unusually high number of searches for members of the Hells Angels, who were later discovered to have connections with the gang that they had lied about during their background checks.

What have the consequences of these leaks been?

In some cases, the leaks preceded revenge attacks on enemies of the gang member involved in the relationship. In other cases, the gang members’ enemies disappeared or were murdered.

Some of the people from the police force involved in the leaks were sentenced to fines for illegal data access or breaches of professional secrecy, while the evidence against others was not sufficient to prosecute. 

At least 30 employees had for different reasons been considered “security risks” and either resigned or were forced to quit, the newspaper reported, with over 514 suspected leaks taking place from police to criminals since 2018.

How do criminals find police officers?

According to DN, they look for things that can be used as blackmail, like police officers who buy drugs, or set “honey traps”, like the one used against Elin, where they meet police officers or students on dating apps and start a relationship.

“You take Tinder, for example, and set your search radius so the police school is in the centre. When you get a match, it’s easy to check if it’s a student, through class lists or how they present themselves on social media. They’re proud of their line of work,” Jonas told DN.

They might also use their family connections to put pressure on relatives who work in the police force.

Why is this important?

It’s important because Sweden has seen a rise in gang-related violence in recent years, with a surge in shootings and bombings as gangs fight for control over different drug markets.

Swedes also have a high level of trust in the police force – 72 percent according to a 2024 study by Medieakademin, topping the list of state authorities, with a higher level of trust than universities, healthcare, the courts and even the Swedish church. This was five percent higher than in 2023.

Although the vast majority of police officers do not leak information to criminal networks, Sweden does not have a history of organised crime infiltrating the police force, so officials are keeping a close eye on these leaks to make sure they don’t become more common.

On April 29th, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told TT newswire that the leaks were “very serious”, potentially putting trust in the police force at risk.

“There are many great risks and one is that trust in police declines, that people get the idea that mafia-like methods are used to infiltrate law enforcement,” he said, before adding that he was unable to say whether it constituted a threat to national security or not purely based on the initial DN article.

“But the mere suspicion of these types of connections are damaging,” he told the newswire.

What happens now?

Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer told DN that he planned to call a meeting with police leadership about the reports, which he described as “extremely serious”.

“[At that meeting] we will consider the need for further measures,” he said.

“Leaking sensitive information to criminals is against the law and can have very damaging consequences for the work of the police force,” Strömmer told DN, adding that it could undermine trust in the police and “damage democracy”.

Last summer, the government increased the penalty for breaching professional secrecy, and a special investigator was tasked with looking at a potential reform of the rules on corruption and professional misconduct in February – the Crime Prevention Council is also involved in that investigation, where it has been asked to provide information on how gangs use government employees.

“Protecting the integrity of the justice system against infiltration and other security threats is a central part of the new national strategy against organised crime that the government decided on earlier this year, and it is given the highest priority in our assignments to the authorities,” Strömmer told the newspaper.

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