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CRIME

This Swedish video shows a different side of Rinkeby

When Stockholm suburb Rinkeby makes the news it tends to be for its problems, but a new video from two Swedish film-makers highlights a different side to the area.

Published: 9 May 2017 10:42 CEST
This Swedish video shows a different side of Rinkeby
Film-makers Olle Öberg and Liban Abshir Mohamed. Photo: Pontus Hammarström

International readers may be familiar with Rinkeby through the headlines it made in February when a riot broke out days after Donald Trump thrust the spotlight on Sweden with his “last night…” comments. When the suburb is given attention, it is generally for the wrong reasons.

Inspired by a lack of information on what day-to-day life is like in Rinkeby, Olle Öberg and fellow YouTuber Liban Abshir Mohamed decided to go to there themselves, talk to the locals, and film what happened.

“It's easy to get the idea that Rinkeby and other suburbs you've never been to are dangerous and really bad places. I'm not saying they're perfect at all, but I don't think it's like what the media says either,” Öberg told The Local.

“Rinkeby's a great place with nice people. The media and most of Sweden think otherwise, I wanted to prove them wrong,” added Abshir Mohamed, who is from nearby Tensta.

One of the key points to emerge from the film is residents are frustrated that many don't base their opinions of Rinkeby on personal experience taken from going there, and instead rely on second-hand accounts. One local summed that up in the video by pleading “you should come here. It's people living here, not animals”.

“Everybody said of course there were problems like everywhere, but not only there. I grew up in a small town called Uddevalla where there was recently a triple murder. I doubt anyone is afraid of going there, so why should you be afraid to go to Rinkeby?” Öberg questioned.

“Rinkeby has become a symbol for suburbs where a lot of people from other countries live. In my opinion it's bad for everyone that Sweden is so segregated: it causes a lot of problems, fear, and hate between people. The big problem with today's society is people don't meet each other, and that's what we should really be afraid of and work on.”

READ ALSO: Sweden to get new anti-segregation authority

The reality though is that Rinkeby does have major challenges, and is one of 15 areas Swedish police judged to be “particularly vulnerable” in 2015. The day after the most recent riot The Local went to the Stockholm suburb to report, and residents had plenty to say about the area's issues, with several noting that they feel a minority of troublemakers are not being adequately dealt with.

Öberg acknowledged that there are problems in the suburb, but he feels that the attitude towards the area from some parties doesn’t help.

“It's important to focus on how to make things better. The media judges the people living there and blames them, but it's a problem for society. It's a very small part of the people living there who cause trouble, the majority seem to be really tired of it,” he explained.

“We met some teenagers who asked us why we were filming and had a negative attitude. They wanted to act cool and behave the way expected of them when the media shows up – play up to the stereotype of a young guy living in the suburbs. Since we were nice, they couldn't do much more than walk away. If we wanted to paint a bad image of Rinkeby, we could've just provoked them to do something, blur their faces, and put it online. But we didn't want to do that.”

READ ALSO: What Rinkeby residents think about the riots

The people who cause problems are very much in the minority, he concluded:

“They're not representative of the population of Rinkeby. We wanted to show the everyday life and nice people there. Many of the older people we met told us it's youngsters causing trouble from time to time. I think they are frustrated, feel excluded and do things the way society expects them to. No one believes in them or where they are from, and that's one of the big problems. It would be better to invest in their and everyone's future.”

READ ALSO: How is Sweden tackling its integration challenge?

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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