By Mark Tanos
Teenage girls are recruiting themselves as contract killers in Sweden’s organized crime wars, with prosecutors reporting cases of 15-year-olds accepting assassination missions through encrypted messaging apps, according to officials.
“I had a case involving a 15-year-old girl recruited to shoot someone in the head,” Stockholm prosecutor Ida Arnell told the Agence France-Presse (AFP). “She was able to choose the type of mission she wanted, in other words, to aim at the guy’s door or his head. She chose the head.”
The girl and her 17-year-old male accomplice allegedly left their victim fighting for survival after shooting him in the neck, stomach and legs, the AFP reported.
Sweden charged 280 girls aged 15 to 17 with murder, manslaughter or other violent crimes in 2024, though authorities cannot confirm how many cases are linked to organized crime, the outlet reported. Prosecutors say girls now compete to prove themselves more ruthless than their male counterparts.
Teenage girls are hiring themselves out as hitwomen in Sweden’s organized crime wars, keen to prove they are more deadly and ruthless than young men, prosecutors say. https://t.co/YJb4gDbxQL
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 5, 2025
“[Girls] have to show that they are even more determined and tougher (than boys) to get the job,” Arnell told the outlet.
Sweden’s Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer acknowledged in April that authorities have long overlooked female involvement in criminal networks, AFP reported. “Preconceived notions about the role of women and girls in crime present the risk that they are seen neither as criminals nor as people in need of help,” he said.
The government now considers these criminal networks a “systemic threat” to Sweden. Gang leaders orchestrate operations from abroad while teenagers carry out shootings and bombings contracted through encrypted sites, according to the outlet. (RELATED: ROOKE: Shocking Teen Murder Exposes Eerie Reason Parents Should Be Wary Of Modern Dating)
A March report found two-thirds of girls who committed drug-related crimes had experienced sexual violence, with most suffering from addiction and untreated trauma, AFP reported.
