Johannes Kongsnes Natland [AFP/Yonhap]
Johannes Kongsnes Natland [AFP/Yonhap]

A Norwegian teenager recruited by an Iran-backed criminal network to carry out a murder in the United Kingdom has been sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

Woolwich Crown Court in London sentenced Johannes Kongsnes Natland, 19, to 20 years in prison on Oct. 16 (local time) on charges of conspiracy to murder, Yonhap reported, citing the Guardian.

Natland had previously been a promising footballer.

He traveled from Norway to the UK in March last year after agreeing to kill an unidentified target in exchange for 25,000 euros ($28,000), but was arrested two days before he was to carry out the attack.

Court proceedings revealed that Natland had been recruited by another teenager known as "Generalene," a figure linked to the Swedish gang Foxtrot.

Through his connection to Foxtrot, Natland received instructions from a member operating under the name "Agent 47." He traveled to Manchester on a temporary passport, then moved to Huddersfield in northern England, where he checked into a hotel and received two firearms, ammunition and 2,000 pounds in cash.

While at the hotel, he placed the guns and cash on his bed and took a selfie, and told his girlfriend that he had "got the guns."

Armed police raided the hotel two days before the planned attack and arrested him. Officers seized a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver, 12 rounds of ammunition and gloves.

Natland acknowledged possessing the firearms and ammunition, but told investigators he had intended to shoot himself in the foot to escape the "trouble" he was in.

As evidence mounted against him at trial, he told the court: "I was not an international hitman. I thought people thought of me as that and expected me to act like that. But I knew I wasn't that person."

His defense counsel appealed for leniency, describing Natland as a "young, popular and successful student and athlete" before he fell into drug addiction and went astray.

The presiding judge told Natland: "You had numerous opportunities to remove yourself from the situation, but you agreed to and pursued the role of 'enforcer.'" The judge added: "No one was shot and killed or physically harmed, but I am satisfied that had the police not intervened, you would have acted as agreed."

'Cynically outsourcing violence to vulnerable youth'

[123RF]
[123RF]

Meanwhile, the BBC reported in August that criminal networks across Europe have been increasingly using social media to recruit teenagers for contract killings — a phenomenon sometimes described as "violence as a service" — Yonhap reported at the time. The gang most prominently cited in that report was Foxtrot.

The group is believed to have been involved in nearly 355 murders since 2022, as well as explosive and grenade attacks targeting Israeli-linked facilities in Europe.

Foxtrot is known to lure teenagers with money to carry out killings and attacks. Those who act on the orders — as in Natland's case — are frequently arrested at the scene, and the gang rarely follows through on promised payments.

In February last year, 18-year-old Atilla Azimov shot and killed a university student on the outskirts of Stockholm, Sweden, acting on a Foxtrot contract. He killed the wrong person.

Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, has characterized Foxtrot's methods as "gamification." Andy Kraag of Europol's European Serious and Organised Crime Centre described the approach as "the cynical outsourcing of murder to vulnerable young people."

Foxtrot's leader, Rawa Majid, is believed to have left Sweden and his subsequent base in Turkey and is now residing in Tehran, Iran.

European investigators suspect Foxtrot has been used not only to target Iranian dissidents, journalists and Israeli-linked objectives, but is also involved in disputes over drug markets.


yul@heraldcorp.com