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Murder charges in gay dating site killing

Swedish prosecutors have brought murder charges against two Stockholm men involved in a high-profile robbery of a man they contacted on a gay dating website and then left to bleed to death in suburban woodlands.

Published: 21 November 2013 13:22 CET

Murder charges in gay dating site killing

Police remove the body from the Solna woods. File: Johan Nilsson/TT

The police found the body of the battered man in a forest area of Stockholm suburb Solna in September. The 32-year-old had also been attacked with a knife. Four people were arrested on suspicion of the attack, while a 16-year-old girl was considered too young to be detained.

Prosecutor Jenny Clemedtson on Thursday announced that two of the men, aged 25 and 26, would face charges of murder and aggravated robbery. The two women will not be charged for the man's death but will go to trial for their involvement in the robbery. The 29-year-old man will be charged with accessory to aggravate robbery.

The assailants contacted their victim on the Qruiser website, which on its website describes itself as "the largest Nordic Community for homo, bisexual, transgender or queer people and our friends".

There was no mention in the Swedish press whether the gang of five had homophobic motives.

The two female assailants, aged 18 and 16, set up a meeting with their victim via SMS. Once he arrived at Järva krog pub in Solna, he was hit, kicked and stabbed. The attackers stabbed him in both legs, one arm, the hands and the torso. As he fell, mortally wounded, to the ground, the man had his pocket picked of 5,000 kronor ($755).

The gang then left him to die in the woods.

Extensive SMS traffic forms part of the prosecutor's case against the gang. They identify a similar attack just the day before their fatal assault on the 32-year-old. That victim received hits to the face and head, was pulled by his hair, and suffered a barrage of kicks. The 18-year-old woman allegedly threatened to kill him before he surrendered his credit card, the pin number, a commuter rail pass, and a mobile phone.

A third victim lured to the same spot in Solna just a few days before the murder was threatened with a knife, assaulted and robbed. Because the attackers used a knife to threaten him the prosecutor has charged the gang with aggravated robbery.

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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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