The Police's National Operational Department (Noa) estimates that around 600 individuals spread across 57 countries are committing serious crimes in Sweden. The government wants more to be done to catch them.
Therefore, a number of authorities are now being tasked with taking measures to ensure that more are prosecuted and to make it more difficult for them to operate from abroad. The affected authorities are the Economic Crime Authority, the Prison and Probation Service, the Police, the Tax Agency, the Customs Service, and the Prosecution Authority, which are to submit their final reports by October 31 next year.
We must both catch those who commit the crimes in a completely different way than today, but also catch those who order the crimes, says Strömmer at a press conference in a courtyard in the Rosengård district of Malmö on Friday afternoon.
Prosecutors and Police
The decision was made on Thursday, but the affected authorities have been aware of the plans for some time, according to Strömmer.
In practice, this can mean that Swedish authorities will have personnel on site in countries with many Swedish gang criminals, such as liaison prosecutors and liaison police officers. Sweden already has established legal cooperation with many countries.
I believe that we can put much greater pressure if different authorities work much closer together, says Gunnar Strömmer.
More Cooperation Agreements
The government can also do more, emphasizes the Minister of Justice, to create political pressure on such countries to create better conditions for catching Swedish gang criminals.
Strömmer also announced that agreements on legal cooperation can be concluded with more countries. This involves both strengthening bilateral cooperation with countries where the criminals are located and cooperation within the EU.