ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Kurdistan Region's security forces (Asayish) on Tuesday announced the arrest of a suspected key figure in the Swedish Foxtrot Network in Sulaimani, who is accused of ordering murders.

“In a joint operation between the Kurdistan Region Security Agency and Iraq’s National Intelligence Service, the leader of a criminal gang was arrested. He was subject to domestic and international arrest warrants and is affiliated with the criminal Foxtrot network," read a statement from Asayish.

“The criminal group had plans to use Iraqi territory to carry out their criminal activities,” it added.

Foxtrot - established in 2010 - is a major criminal Network involved in bombings, shootings, drug trafficking and other violent crimes and is led by the Kurdish-Swedish Rawa Majid known as “the Kurdish Fox (Kurdiska Raven).”

The 21 year-old Ali Shehab was captured in Majid’s hometown of Sulaimani in the Kurdistan Region on December 13, the Swedish state broadcaster SVT News reported Tuesday.

Shehab, who was on Interpol’s most wanted list, is accused of among other things, recruiting children for murder contracts, planning a mass shooting in Farsta in 2023, another fatal shooting in Gävle last year and one in Lund in January.

“He is very close to the top leader of Foxtrot,” National Police Commissioner Petra Lundh told SVT.

“He is someone who orders murders. He has been sitting in Iraq and making those orders,” says Petra Lundh,” she added.

In March, the US sanctioned the network for drug trafficking and reportedly working with Iran to carry out “attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Europe.”

“In January 2024, the Foxtrot Network orchestrated an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, on behalf of the Government of Iran,” the US state department said in March.

There have been increasing reports of Foxtrot members being arrested or killed in the region.

In July, leader of the Rumba Network Ismail Abdo, Majid’s partner turned enemy, was arrested by Turkish security forces.

During the same month, Ahmed Alaa Fawzi known as “Dybala” was arrested in Erbil.

Leader of the Swedish “La Liga” criminal network Mustafa al-Jibouri known as “Benzema,” also an enemy to Majid, was shot to death in Baghdad in 2024.

Sweden has witnessed a spike in gang-related violence.

The gangs frequently recruit children to carry out murders and attacks due to Sweden’s lax sentences for minors.