Three Swedish men arrested in southern France said to have criminal connections

THREE Swedish men have been arrested in southern France, with one of them believed to be connected to a criminal network south of Stockholm.

The other two detainees are said to have other connections to serious crime in Sweden, according to aftonbladet.se. They were reportedly arrested in the south of France while carrying false documents but no further details about the arrest are available at this time, apart from they are suspected of falsifying records.

According to the Swedish news outlet, all three men are in their 20s and have previously been convicted of both violent and drug crimes.

What is the background of the three men?

Initial information suggests that one of the men belongs to a criminal network in the Stockholm area. He is said to have recently been paroled after serving time in prison for serious drug and weapons offences.

Documents from the Correctional Service seen by the news outlet revealed that other two were also linked to serious crime. One of them has a varied criminal record, including drug and weapons offences.

The other detainee was sentenced in the same case as the other gang member involving minor drug offences after cannabis was found in his residence. A serious drug offence was requested by the prosecutor in that instance. According to his statement at the time, the man resides mainly in Morocco.

What did Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have to say?

Today’s incident is not yet a matter for Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The department informed aftonbladet.se that they currently have no case concerning three Swedish men being arrested in France.

‘The Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Paris are investigating the information, but it is not currently a matter for the Foreign Ministry’, they wrote in an email to the newspaper.

‘Deprivation of liberty abroad does not necessarily have to be a matter for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, a state must inform our embassy/consulate if a Swedish citizen has been deprived of his liberty, provided that the person deprived of his liberty himself wants it’, they explained.

Earlier this week, several Swedish gang members were arrested in Tunisia. According to Aftonbladet’s information, Swedish police suspect that the individuals belonged to Rawa Majid’s inner circle. Whether the arrests in Tunisia and France are connected has not yet been verified.