Detectives in London investigating the murder on 24 December of 36-year-old Flamur Beqiri, have been liaising with police in Sweden and Denmark as they try to figure out who assassinated him and why.
Beqiri, known to friends as Alex, was returning to his £1.5 million home in Battersea, south London, around 9pm on Christmas Eve when he was gunned down in front of his wife, Debora Krasniqi, and his young son.
The gunman ran off and detectives believe it was a targeted assassination and was linked to Beqiri’s life in the criminal underworld.
Beqiri, who was of Albanian origin, was a close friend of Naief Adawi, 36, who was one of 14 men convicted of taking part in Denmark’s biggest heist, in 2008.
Huge Bank Raid in Brondby, Denmark
In 2008, the gang stole 62 million kroner (£7 million) from the Dansk Værdihåndtering cash depot in Brondby, a suburb of Copenhagen.
The gang, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, used a bulldozer to knock down the depot’s wall and set 11 refuse trucks on fire nearby in a bid to block police pursuers.
Three million kroner was later discovered in the garden of a former girlfriend of one member of the gang, Tayeb Si M'rabet, in Odense, Denmark, but most of the money has never been recovered.
Adawi, who was jailed for eight years in 2010, was linked to the M-Falangen, a gang with links to the Sandzak region of Serbia and Montenegro.
In August last year a gunman ambushed Adawi, his wife Dr Karolin Hakim, and their young child when they stopped at a falafel kiosk in the Swedish city of Malmo.
Bank Robber Left Wife to Die
The assassin fired at Adawi, who handed his two-month-old baby to his wife and ran off. The gunman then turned to Dr Hakim and shot her in the head, killing her instantly. The child survived.
Beqiri and Adawi are believed to have been involved in the smuggling of cannabis and cocaine through Morocco and Spain.
Adawi believed to have used his share of the Copenhagen heist takings to get into the drug trade and Beqiri set up several front companies, purporting to be record labels, in Malmo and London as cover for his real business.
Beqiri's sister Misse starred in a UK reality TV show - The Real Housewives of Cheshire and was married to Manchester United goalkeeper Anders Lindegaard, who now plays for Helsingborgs in Sweden.
The Beqiri family issued a statement last week in which they said: “Our family are in a state of shock and are grieving. To have so much sadness at this time of the year is heartbreaking. We would kindly ask that you respect our privacy and let us grieve in peace.”
Links to Sweden and Albania
“I am aware that there is intense speculation around this tragic incident, including the victim’s background and past," Detective Inspector Jamie Stevenson says. "Flamur, who is of Swedish nationality and Albanian heritage, had been living in London for four or five years…work is ongoing to determine what the possible motive could be, and while we retain an open mind, we are considering that this is a targeted attack.”
Swedish crime reporter Joakim Palmkvist said it was unlikely Beqiri’s murder was directly linked to the Copenhagen heist.
“Too much time has passed. The victims were not central figures in the heist. Other motives prevail, probably related to drugs,” he says.
The Mail on Sunday newspaper in London claimed Beqiri was associated with a gang called Los Suecos (The Swedes), who are said to have been linked to ten murders in Sweden and Spain. Their leader Amir Mekky, 22, was shot in the leg outside the Galaxy cafe in central Malmo last year.