The Swedish police has voiced suspicions that Westerns arms sent to Ukraine may end up in the hands of criminal gangs in Sweden, Swedish Radio reported.
“There is probably a high risk that the influx of illegal weapons will reach Sweden when there is a little more order there, maybe even peace,” Police Commissioner Gunnar Appelgren told Swedish Radio.
“So far, weapons are needed because of the war, but in a peace situation you no longer need as many weapons and then there are illegal structures that are out to make money,” Gunnar Appelgren mused.
According to Swedish Radio, in the recent wave of fatal shootings across Sweden, weapons from the wars in the former Yugoslavia have been used in the majority of cases.
“A lot of automatic weapons such as AK-47s, that is Kalashnikovs, arrived. A number of years ago, hand grenades also arrived in the very same loads. They come in vehicles and buses,” Gunnar Appelgren explained.
Earlier, similar thoughts have been voiced by Interpol, whose head argued that there is “no doubt” that illegal arms trafficking will increase once the conflict in Ukraine has ended. According to Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock, previous experience from the Balkan wars and theatres in Africa indicates that organised crime groups will inevitably try to exploit the chaos and the abundance of arms.
In recent years, Sweden has landed in a deadly spiral of gang-related violence and organised crime, with shootings and explosions linked to ethnic mob wars often dominating the news cycle. Furthermore, the Swedish police estimate is that at least 5,000 gang members are active in the country's over 60 “no-go zones”, formally referred to as “vulnerable areas” or “exclusion areas”, and cited some 40 criminal clans, some of which appeared in Sweden from abroad solely for the purpose of criminal activity.
Since the start of the Russia's special operation in Ukraine to “demilitarise and de-Nazify” the country and protect the inhabitants of the Donbass People's Republics, Kiev has enjoyed massive arms deliveries from across the entire Western world. Lethal contributions have flowed in from both immediate neighbours such as Poland and Slovakia and overseas nations such as Australia and Canada, ostensibly to help it protect itself against what has been presented as “Russian invasion”.
Sweden alone has abandoned its practice of not sending arms to nations involved in conflicts and contributed 10,000 anti-tank missiles and other combat gear. A new batch even includes Sjömålsrobot 17 naval missiles and AG90 automatic rifles with ammunition.
Russia has slammed the arms assistance as “pouring oil on the fire”, while stressing that arms shipments to Kiev would constitute a “legitimate target” for the Russian forces. Moscow even repeatedly warned of the dangers of such military assistance, which serves to prolong the conflict, and could even risk a direct confrontation with NATO.