Swedish police have been hunting for “The Fox” for several years. This is how he got away.
Rawa Majid obtained citizenship in Turkey and, according to Swedish police, will manage his criminal network from there. But now he himself has ended up on the death list of former allies. Photo: Swedish police
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Published: 23/09/2023 22:05
The bag, which had been forgotten on a park bench, contained more than NOK 130,000 in US dollars. The owner himself went to the Turkish police to get it back, but was later arrested. Was the hunt for “The Kurdish fox” now over?
The incident happened in the resort town of Marmaris in Turkey last spring. Then the Swedish police had their eyes on Rawa Majid (37).
They believe the Uppsala man leads a powerful drug network that smuggles drugs into Sweden and gets young men to commit contract killings. He himself denies the accusations.
A bloody internal conflict in the network he leads, Foxtrot, is said to be the cause of the wave of violence that Stockholm and Uppsala have experienced in recent weeks.
Norwegian police believe that the Foxtrot network also has people in Norway.
What do we know about the man who goes by the name “The Fox”? And what might happen to him now?
Police on scene in Vasastan when a young man was shot and killed a few weeks ago. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg, TT / NTB
Show moreFacts
The new spiral of violence
Around Christmas time, a conflict broke out between two criminal networks in Sweden: the Dalen network and Foxtrot. They are fighting over the drug market in Sundsvall and Stockholm. This led to a series of shootings and explosions.
In September, a new wave of violence started. It is linked to a split within Foxtrot.
The police believe Rawa Majid leads Foxtrot and that he has fallen out with a former ally (called Jordgubben).
So far, nine people have been shot and killed in Sweden this month. Several of the cases are linked to the conflict within Foxtrot.
Last Friday night, two people were killed in a pub. The police believe it has local gang links, but do not know what the conflict is about. A blind 70-year-old with no gang connections is said to be one of the victims.
During August and September, two 14-year-olds and one 13-year-old were found killed and dumped in a wooded area outside Stockholm. These cases must also have gang connections, without knowing for sure which ones.
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Got citizenship despite a search warrant
Back to what happened last spring.
The owner who wanted the bag back from the police was an Iraqi named Miran Othman. When the police looked up the picture of Othman, they found another name, according to Expressen.
The face belonged to the Swedish citizen Rawa Majid. He was internationally wanted and was accused of being “The Kurdish Fox”. Soon it was reported in Swedish media that he was arrested in Turkey.
But for the Swedish investigators, that did not mean that the hunt for Majid was over. The 37-year-old was released. He had acquired Turkish citizenship.
This happened around the same time that Sweden applied for NATO membership and met a cold shoulder from Turkey in particular.
Rawa Majid applied for citizenship in Turkey under a different name. Photo: Swedish police, TT NEWS AGENCY / NTB
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– Burning under his feet
Turkey, like Sweden, does not extradite its own citizens. But now there is a legal process against him in Turkey, reports SVT.
He will be accused of document forgery. It is linked to the name he used when he obtained Turkish citizenship, Miran Othman. He himself claims that he changed his name due to an inheritance dispute and that it was legal.
Now he may risk losing his citizenship in Turkey, and thus the protection, according to Swedish TV, SVT. As far as Aftenposten knows, this case was already opened last year.
SVT also has information that Majid must have obtained a fake Italian passport and is trying to escape Turkey – so far without success.
– It is burning under his feet, says SVT’s Turkey correspondent Tomas Thorén to his own channel.
But he has eluded the police before. Who is he really?
Fact
Anklagene mot Rawa Majid
This month, new charges were brought against Rawa Majid at several district courts. This includes the use of weapons and serious drug offences.
Last year he was charged with planning murder.
In April 2021, he was accused of serious drug crime and drug trafficking.
He has been detained “in absentia” four times.
Source. The Prosecutor’s Office
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Suddenly got expensive clothes
Rawa Majid was born in Iran in 1986. The parents are Iraqi Kurds, but escaped from northern Iraq. The mother is said to have crossed the border on horseback while she was pregnant. Shortly after, the family fled to Sweden and Uppsala, where the son grew up.
Majid has been described as ambitious but not a top student. That is what the Swedish author and journalist Diamant Salihu writes in the book “När Ingen Lyssnar”.
According to the book, he must have changed between his first and second year of high school. Suddenly he came dressed in expensive designer clothes and gold chains. He is said to have started selling stolen goods. Rumors swirled at school that he sold drugs.
During his 20s, he was convicted several times, for theft, theft and drug offences.
Was on the radar
In recent years, Majid has built himself up to become a central figure in the criminal landscape in Sweden. He has managed this by introducing large batches of drugs, in order to then be able to sell on at a lower price than the competitors. But he has also entered into alliances with other criminal gangs in Stockholm.
These gangs are mainly involved in drug and violent crime, according to police documents from Sweden that Aftenposten has obtained access to.
They are used to carry out murders, bombings and kidnappings on behalf of Foxtrot and Rawa Majid, Swedish police believe.
In 2021, a Swedish investigative group should have warned about Majid’s role in the Swedish drug market and widespread use of violence, according to SVT. But the Swedish police leadership prioritized other people.
Several people within the Swedish police have been critical of this decision.
In recent years, Foxtrot has been in conflict with several criminal networks. This has resulted in several murders, bombings and kidnappings. But it is not these that led him to flee Sweden.
After his cousin was shot and killed in 2018, the Swedish authorities agreed to allow him to leave the country. Why?
The threat to him had become so great that it was safest for him to be somewhere else.
Family business
It was only when Swedish police gained access to the messages that criminals sent each other on the app EncrochatEncrochatA cryptophone which, according to Europol, was almost exclusively used by drug criminals. A cryptophone makes it possible to communicate without the police being able to access the messages. The service was taken down in June 2020. that they singled him out as one of the biggest drug lords in Sweden.
A person with the alias “foxkurdish” appeared to be at the top of a criminal network with an extensive division of labor.
The material from Encrochat and Sky ECCSky ECCCe A crypto phone that was almost exclusively used by criminals involved in drug crimes. The service was taken down on 9 March 2021. has revealed how Majid has used his own family and friends of the family to launder money and to store and transport drugs. For example, large sums of money were found hidden in socks at Majid’s mother’s home. Both she and Majid’s wife worked in an ice cream shop in Uppsala, which is said to have been used to launder money.
Last year, the court ruled that there was no doubt that she had good insight into her son’s criminal activities and that she has helped to launder money from drugs for her son. Both she and Majid’s father were convicted of serious money laundering.
Then the son was out of the country.
Good contacts?
Majid moved to his parents’ hometown of Suleimaniyah in Iraq in 2018. When the pandemic hit, he, his wife and children went back home. But they left Sweden after a short time in the spring of 2020.
Swedish police thought they would be able to get him extradited from Iraq. But when police raided several addresses in Suleimaniyah in 2020, he was gone. Then he appeared in Turkey.
You can get citizenship there if you invest around NOK four million in property. And so did Rawa Majid. He bought a home in Bodrum, according to Swedish daily newspaper.
The former Swedish ambassador to Turkey, Michael Salin, has told Dagens Nyheter that Rawa Majid must have good political contacts who managed to obtain citizenship even though he was internationally wanted.
According to The evening paper In 2022, the Swedish police made a top-secret report that would help catch “The Fox” and his network. It was shared with the Turkish authorities, according to police sources the newspaper has spoken to. But then information from the report appeared on the phones of criminals.
Several Turkish opposition politicians have now questioned how he obtained citizenship and why he was released last year.
Public prosecutor Henrik Söderman tells Aftenposten that he is awaiting developments and information about the impending trial against Rawa Majid in Turkey.
Aftenposten has not been able to get in touch with Majid’s lawyer.
2023-09-23 20:05:59
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