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CRIME

Gothenburg blast: Police identify suspect with ‘no link to criminal gangs’

Police have confirmed that they have identified a suspect for the blast in Gothenburg earlier this week, which forced around 200 people to evacuate their homes and seriously injured four.

Published: 30 September 2021 14:31 CEST
The area around the Gothenburg building hit by the blast cordoned off by police
The area around the building hit by the blast cordoned off by police. Photo: Björn Larsson Rosvall/TT

The detonation occurred shortly before 5am on Tuesday morning, and 16 people were treated in hospital as a result, while residents have not been able to return to their homes.

Police have now issued a warrant for the arrest of a suspect for devastation endangering the public on probable cause (the higher degree of suspicion under Swedish law). The warrant was issued in the suspect’s absence and police have not yet located the person.

“In light of what is known in the investigation, we can say that there is no connection to gang crime,” regional police chief Klas Johansson told a press conference.

He added that the technical investigation had been delayed due to the conditions at the site of the detonation, which made it too difficult for technicians to enter.

Police did not go into any details at the press conference about who the suspect was or what the likely motive behind the act was, but Johansson said: “It is of course very important that we get hold of this person as soon as possible.” Swedish media including SVT Väst cited anonymous sources that said the suspect was a 55-year-old man.

Local newspaper Göteborgs-Posten reports that the Swedish Enforcement Agency had planned to carry out an eviction at the address on Tuesday, which may be linked to the blast.

Police had said on Tuesday that the blast was unlikely to be due to natural causes.

Up until September 15th this year, Swedish police had recorded 60 explosions classified as ‘endangerment of the public’. Many of these blasts are thought to be linked to criminal gang conflicts, but the crime has a relatively low clearance rate meaning the motive and suspects cannot always be identified.

Member comments

  1. So just another regular, ordinary, nameless Swede gathering explosives in his apartment and blowing up buildings before being evicted by police? Makes sense. Total sense. I mean doesn’t everyone in Sweden collect up explosives these days? It’s all the rage, so to speak. Totally normal. Nothing to see here. Move on and ignore the rubble.

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CRIME

Helsingborg ‘has become major European cocaine hub’

A port in southern Sweden has become a European hub for cocaine being smuggled from South America to the continent, Swedish customs warned Friday following several large drug seizures this year.

Published: 26 May 2023 13:48 CEST
Helsingborg 'has become major European cocaine hub'

Swedish customs agents have seized 867 kilograms (1,911 pounds) of cocaine at the Helsingborg port since the beginning of this year, the customs agency said, compared with the 822 kilograms seized in the whole of Sweden last year.

Including seizures abroad destined for Helsingborg, a total of 1.3 tonnes of cocaine had been seized since September 2022.

Magnus Pettersson, a senior prosecutor with the Prosecution Authority’s unit for international and organised crime, told a press conference the seizures “were completely without precedent in Swedish criminal history.”

“Sweden, and the port of Helsingborg, has become the point of transit for South American cocaine on its way out onto the illegal European market,” Pettersson said.

The narcotics are being smuggled in containers often transporting fruits and vegetables on freight ships from South America, in many cases Ecuador, he said.

Hidden compartments are often built into the containers. Helsingborg had emerged as a hub for drug trafficking because the frequency of harbour controls had been too low and security around the port had been lacking.

Coupled together, this meant there was a “near free flow of cocaine” both into and out of the port.

In order to stop the smuggling, every refrigerated container from South America passing through the port would need to be controlled, the customs agency said. The smuggling was believed to involve both Swedish and international criminal networks.

In recent months, Swedish Customs had on multiple occasions discovered tracks from smugglers breaking into the port area to empty the containers.

Equipment such as “bags, bolt cutters and blow torches” had been found, the agency said in a statement.

While additional resources had been committed, the customs agency lamented that few arrests had been made, noting that the only arrest had been of two Albanian citizens after they had collected 47 kilograms of cocaine in December.

Sweden has struggled to rein in a surge of shootings and bombings in recent years, as gangs settle scores fuelled by the narcotics trade.

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