Sweden Gangs: Denmark Putting Up Border Checks

Via The Guardian, we are learning that gang violence is crossing over from Sweden to Denmark. So much so that Denmark has decided to put up border checks between the two nations:

There have been 13 explosions in and around Copenhagen since February, including the bombing in August of the Danish tax agency by what authorities described as “criminals who had crossed the border from Sweden”. Two Swedish nationals are in custody.

. . . Malmö, 25 miles from Copenhagen by the Øresund crossing, has been the scene of many of the gangland bombings and shootings that have recently struck Sweden. On Saturday a 15-year-old boy was shot dead in the city and another teenager critically wounded. Both were known to police.



All the way back in March 2018, I wrote the following:

Here's an article from the New York Times (3 March 2018) and some of the major points are:

1. Gang violence is moving outside of the poorer parts of Sweden.

2. Weapons are entering Sweden via the Oresund Bridge, which links Denmark and Sweden (specifically the city of Malmo). In my previous blog posts, I mentioned that Malmo is the focus of the violence.

Notice that weapons were entering Sweden from Denmark and now violence is hitting the shores of Denmark from Sweden.

The New York Times via Reuters has additional context about Malmö:

Swedish police said on Monday they would set up a special task force to deal with a wave of shootings and bombings linked to criminal gangs following the fatal shooting of a 15-year old in the city of Malmo at the weekend . . . Sweden has been hit by a surge in gang violence in recent years with police saying last week that there had been 187 bomb attacks so far this year, up from 152 in the whole of 2018. In June, about 20 people were wounded when a bomb exploded on a residential street in Linkoping in southern Sweden . . . On Monday, the far-right Sweden Democrats, who have been gaining support among voters worried about violent crime, called a motion of no confidence in Justice Minister Morgan Johansson. "He has done too little," Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Akesson told Swedish radio.

Independent UK back in August wrote about the growing influence of Sweden Democrats and put the blame on Russian influence. When discussing some of the top right wing websites that help fuel the increased popularity of Sweden Democrats:

Russia’s hand in all of this is largely hidden from view. But fingerprints abound. For instance, one writer for Samhallsnytt, who previously worked for the Sweden Democrats, was recently declined parliamentary press accreditation after the security police determined he had been in contact with Russian intelligence. Fria Tider is considered not only one of the most extreme sites, but also among the most Kremlin-friendly. It frequently swaps material with the Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik.

Maybe Russia is helping things along, but statistics also don't lie. Bombings appear to be on the increase and Denmark is getting nervous about their neighbors. When bombs are blowing up every other day, maybe the other political parties should pursue some law and order policies in order to prevent the rise of Sweden Democrats.