Young guns for hire - the teenage hitmen recruited to kill across Europe

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrjyevmv61o

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Have they tried offering high cash rewards to kids who snitch on people trying to hire them to be assassins? The article makes it seem like they do it for cash rather than because they were groomed.

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the radicalization pipeline hard at work

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Honestly, this isn’t even radicalization. They’re just exploiting easily swayed youth for their own (or others’) immediate gain. There doesn’t really seem to be any underlying wish to change the views of these kids. Not that this makes it any less bad, of course!

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Yeah, this is just about money, and underage youth having a legal semi-immunity

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When I was a kid or youngster end 80s, beginning 90s I haven’t heard about kids that would accept to be hired to kill a Person, nor a similar thought crossed my mind. I have sometimes the impression that there is huge increase in violence among young people in the last two decades.

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Comments in Hacker News@lemmy.bestiver.se

Treating Natland a bit like a character in a computer game, “1” sent him a map and videos showing him where to find the guns hidden in woodland in Huddersfield, and then another video showing him how to access a stash of cash hidden in the undergrowth near a foot tunnel.

Sending a map and videos of where equipment is hidden is all it takes to be considered “gamified”? Wtf? The article seems to be going out of its way to yet again demonize games as causing violence.

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According to Operational Taskforce (OTF) GRIMM, the Europol group set up to tackle the problem, the teenage hitmen are recruited on social media, and are given their instructions in a “gamified” way, imitating how computer games work.

Andy Kraag, the head of Europol’s European Serious and Organised Crime Centre, calls it the “calculated outsourcing of murder” to vulnerable young people.

OTF GRIMM currently involves 11 countries affected by the VaaS phenomenon - Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

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OTF GRIMM has had some successes in the 15 months since it was set up. Police have made more than 280 arrests including a few key suspects.

One of the most important arrests was that of Ahmed, who is thought to be Agent 47.

He was detained in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq, and is currently subject to an extradition request to Sweden.

The Swedish deputy national police commissioner Stefan Hector said they were “constantly expanding our co-operation with other countries” and showing organised criminals “they cannot feel safe anywhere in the world”.

In May, Mohamed “Moewgli” Mohdhi, a former rapper described by Swedish police as a “central actor” in Foxtrot, was arrested in Tunisia.

But Majid himself remains out of reach in Iran.

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