The teenage hitmen recruited to kill across Europe
Organized crime groups like the Foxtrot Network are increasingly recruiting teenagers via social media to carry out contract killings across Europe. These criminal organizations use gamified instructions to manipulate vulnerable youth into performing violent acts for cash.
Why it matters
The rise of 'violence-as-a-service' and the exploitation of minors by transnational crime syndicates pose a significant challenge to European law enforcement and public safety.
Share Save Add as preferred on Google Daniel Sandford UK correspondent Swedish Police Atilla Azimov posing with a gun three months before he killed Murad Abdelkader In a Stockholm suburb a man dressed in black appeared out of the winter night. Carrying a handgun, he approached 20-year-old Murad Abdelkader, a student on his way back from a shift at McDonald's.
The gunman opened fire, shooting again and again as he approached his target. He fired the last shot into his victim's head as he lay helpless on the ground.
The killer was 18-year-old Atilla Azimov. On that February night last year, he had killed the wrong man.
He had done it for money - hired by the Foxtrot Network, an organised crime group with links to the Iranian regime which has become notorious for its violence-as-a-service (VaaS) tactics.
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