During the day, Strömmer held talks with Tunisian Interior Minister Khaled Nouri about strengthening police cooperation and reaching a bilateral agreement on crime prevention.
"Today we have talked about serious violent crimes, drug crimes, money laundering, and other issues related to the criminal economy, where we find structures to make one another better," says Strömmer on the phone from the capital, Tunis.
“Strong interest”
Sweden has previously signed similar agreements with Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Morocco. Strömmer says there is “a strong interest among other countries to find, arrest and get rid of these people.”
They order violence, recruit children and organize large-scale fraud against our elderly. At the same time, these are people who often commit crimes and pose a risk of violence where they are, says the Minister of Justice.
“Very big impact”
Along for the trip is Deputy National Police Commissioner Stefan Hector, who has been meeting with Tunisian police. He describes Tunisia as an important country for Swedish gang members hiding abroad.
"We have reduced two of the three leading criminal networks. What we are doing now is trying to reduce the capacity of the third leading criminal network," says Hector.
Neither Strömmer nor Hector wants to give any further details about which gang members are involved, but Hector states that there are around 10-20 people involved, some of whom are in custody.
We see maybe one or two individuals with a very large impact. Those are the ones we are primarily interested in, says Hector.
