Swedish triple murder suspect remanded in custody
Police in Uppsala have not confirmed that the shooting was gang-related. Photo: AFP
A Swedish prosecutor said on Sunday he had requested that a man suspected of a triple shooting be remanded in custody.
Three others arrested in the probe on suspicion of incitement to murder have been released but are still the subject of investigation, prosecutor Andreas Nyberg said.
The man to be held in pre-trial detention was in his 20s and had been in police custody since Thursday, the prosecutor said.
No date has yet been released for his court hearing.
Three men aged 15 to 20 were killed late on Tuesday in broad daylight at a hair salon in central Uppsala, a university town north of the capital, Stockholm.
The shooting has fuelled fears among some people in Sweden of a rising tide of gang violence, although police have not confirmed that the shooting was gang-related.
According to the Swedish press, at least one of the victims had ties to organised crime. Police have not confirmed that claim.
Sweden has been seeking in recent years to stem a wave of violence between rival gangs vying for control of the drug trade.
Uppsala has long been the base of Sweden's two most notorious rival gang leaders, Ismail Abdo and Rawa Majid, although both are suspected of orchestrating their operations from abroad. (AFP)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTHK
a day ago
- RTHK
Boxer Chavez Jr deported from US over 'cartel ties'
Boxer Chavez Jr deported from US over 'cartel ties' Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (right) is accused of being a hitman for the Sinaloa drug cartel. File photo: AFP Former champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr has been detained in Mexico after deportation by the United States to face shock charges of involvement with a drug cartel, Mexican authorities said on Tuesday. The son of boxing icon Julio Cesar Chavez stands accused of serving as a henchman for the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, which Washington designated a foreign terrorist organisation this year, and of trafficking firearms and explosives. Acccording to Mexican media, which claim to have had access to the case files, Chavez, 39, was allegedly a "hitman" used to punish members of the cartel. "He hangs them (and) grabs them like a punching bag," the Reforma newspaper reported, citing testimony in the prosecutor's documents. The Attorney General's Office has withheld details of the indictment. Chavez was handed over on Monday and transferred to a prison in Mexico's northwest Sonora state, according to information on the country's National Detention Registry. "He was deported," President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, adding there was an active arrest warrant for him in Mexico. US authorities arrested Chavez in July for being in the United States illegally. They also said he was wanted in Mexico for alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel, one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organisations by the United States. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees US immigration enforcement, said Chavez had entered the United States legally in 2023 on a tourist visa that was valid until February 2024. He applied for permanent residency in April, 2024 "based on his marriage to a US citizen, who is connected to the Sinaloa Cartel through a prior relationship with the now-deceased son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman," DHS said in its July 3 arrest announcement. His extradition comes as US President Donald Trump cracks down on immigrants as part of a promise to deport millions of people. Chavez's arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in Los Angeles occured four days after his lopsided loss to YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul before a sell-out crowd in California. Once a top-rated boxer, Chavez won the WBC middleweight world title in 2011 and successfully defended it three times. But his career has also included multiple suspensions and fines for failed drug tests. (AFP)
RTHK
2 days ago
- RTHK
'Ketamine Queen' to plead guilty in Matthew Perry case
'Ketamine Queen' to plead guilty in Matthew Perry case According to her plea agreement, Jasveen Sangha worked with a middleman to sell 51 vials of ketamine to Matthew Perry's assistant. File photo: Reuters A dealer dubbed the "Ketamine Queen" has agreed to plead guilty to supplying the drugs that killed "Friends" actor Matthew Perry, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Jasveen Sangha, 42, will admit several charges, including one of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury in relation to the late star. A dual citizen of the United States and Britain, she is expected to formally enter her pleas in the coming weeks She has been in federal custody since August 2024. Sangha will become the fifth person to admit playing a part in the death of the actor, who had openly struggled for decades with substance addiction. Perry, 54, was found dead in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home in October 2023. A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered he had high levels of ketamine – an anesthetic – in his system. Last month, Dr Salvador Plasencia pleaded guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine in the weeks before Perry's death. Another doctor, Mark Chavez, admitted last year to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry. Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the American-Canadian actor at hugely inflated prices. "I wonder how much this moron will pay," Plasencia wrote in one text message. According to her plea agreement, Sangha worked with a middleman, Erik Fleming, to sell 51 vials of ketamine to Perry's live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa. Iwamasa repeatedly injected Perry with the ketamine that Sangha supplied, including on October 28, 2023, when he administered at least three shots of Sangha's ketamine, which killed the actor. The Justice Department said when Sangha heard news reports about Perry's sudden death, she tried to cover her tracks. "Delete all our messages," she instructed Fleming. When investigators raided Sangha's home they found methamphetamine, ketamine, ecstasy, cocaine, and counterfeit Xanax pills, as well as a money counting machine, a scale, and devices to detect wireless signals and hidden cameras, according to the Justice Department. Sangha is expected to plead guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury. "She's taking responsibility for her actions," her lawyer Mark Geragos told AFP. Sangha could face decades in prison when sentenced. (AFP)
HKFP
10-08-2025
- HKFP
‘Hanger war': Italy's fast fashion hub becomes Chinese mafia battlefield
When Zhang Dayong lay in a pool of blood on a sidewalk in Rome after being shot six times, few suspected a link to Italy's storied textile hub of Prato. But a 'hanger war' is raging in the city near Florence — turning Europe's largest apparel manufacturing centre and a pillar of Made in Italy production into a battleground for warring Chinese mafia groups. The situation has become so urgent that Prato's prosecutor, Luca Tescaroli, has appealed to Rome for help, calling for an anti-mafia division and reinforcements for judges and police. Tescaroli has warned that the escalation in crime has become a huge business operation and moved beyond Italy, particularly to France and Spain. The gangs are battling to control the production of hundreds of millions of clothes hangers each year — the market is estimated to be worth 100 million euros (US$115 million) — and the bigger prize of transporting apparel. The Chinese mafia also 'promotes the illegal immigration of workers of various nationalities' for Prato, Tescaroli told AFP. The veteran anti-mafia prosecutor said the 'phenomenon has been underestimated', allowing the mafia to expand its reach. With one of Europe's largest Chinese communities, the city of nearly 200,000 people has seen Chinese business owners and factory workers beaten or threatened in recent months, with cars and warehouses burned. The ex-head of Prato's police investigative unit, Francesco Nannucci, said the Chinese mafia run betting dens, prostitution and drugs — and provide their Italian counterparts with under-the-radar money transfers. For mafia leaders, 'to be able to command in Prato means being able to lead in much of Europe,' Nannucci told AFP. 'Well-oiled system' Chinese groups in the district thrive on the so-called 'Prato system', long rife with corruption and irregularities, particularly in the fast-fashion sector, such as labour and safety violations plus tax and customs fraud. Prato's 5,000-odd apparel and knitwear businesses, mostly small, Chinese-run subcontractors, churn out low-priced items that end up in shops across Europe. They pop up quickly and shut down just as fast, playing a cat-and-mouse game with authorities to avoid taxes or fines. Fabric is smuggled from China, evading customs duties and taxes, while profits are returned to China via illegal money transfers. To stay competitive, the sector relies on cheap, around-the-clock labour, mostly from China and Pakistan, which Tescaroli told a Senate committee in January was 'essential for its proper functioning'. 'It's not just one or two bad apples, but a well-oiled system they use, and do very well — closing, reopening, not paying taxes,' said Riccardo Tamborrino, a Sudd Cobas union organiser leading strikes on behalf of immigrants. Investigators say the immigrants work seven days a week, 13 hours a day for about three euros (US$3.40) an hour. Tamborrino said Prato's apparel industry was 'free from laws, from contracts'. 'It's no secret,' he said. 'All this is well known.' 'Miss Fashion' Trucks lumber day and night through the streets of Prato's industrial zone, an endless sprawl of asphalt lined with warehouses and apparel showrooms with names like 'Miss Fashion' and 'Ohlala Pronto Moda'. Open metal doors reveal loaded garment racks, rolls of fabric and stacks of boxes awaiting shipment — the final step controlled by Zhang Naizhong, whom prosecutors dub the 'boss of bosses' within Italy's Chinese mafia. A 2017 court document described Zhang as the 'leading figure in the unscrupulous circles of the Chinese community' in Europe, with a monopoly on the transport sector and operations in France, Spain, Portugal and Germany. Zhang Dayong, the man killed in Rome alongside his girlfriend in April, was Zhang Naizhong's deputy. The shootings followed three massive fires set at his warehouses outside Paris and Madrid in previous months. Nannucci believes Naizhong could be in China, after his 2022 acquittal for usury in a huge ongoing Chinese mafia trial plagued by problems — including a lack of translators and missing files. On a recent weekday, a handful of Pakistani men picketed outside the company that had employed them, after it shut down overnight having just agreed to give workers a contract under Italian law. Muhammed Akram, 44, saw his boss quietly emptying the factory of sewing machines, irons and other equipment. 'Sneaky boss,' he said, in broken Italian. Chinese garment workers, who are in the majority in Prato and often brought to Italy by the mafia, never picket, union activists say — they are too frightened to protest. Trading favours Changes in apparel manufacturing, globalisation and migration have all contributed to the so-called 'Prato system'. So has corruption. In May 2024, the second-in-command within Prato's Carabinieri police was accused of giving Italian and Chinese entrepreneurs — among them a chamber of commerce businessman — access to the police database for information, including on workers. Police complaints from attacked workers 'ended up in a drawer, never reaching the court', Sudd Cobas organiser Francesca Ciuffi told AFP. Prato's mayor resigned in June in a corruption investigation, accused of trading favours with the businessman for votes. In recent months, the union has secured regular contracts under national law for workers at over 70 companies. That will not help those caught in Prato's mafia war, however, where 'bombs have exploded and warehouses have been burned down', said Ciuffi. 'People who wake up in the morning, quietly going to work, risk getting seriously injured, if not worse, because of a war that doesn't concern them.'
