Sweden’s national police commissioner Petra Lundh has praised Moroccan police for their cooperation in tracking down wanted Swedish nationals after a fifth fugitive was arrested in Morocco in the space of a month.
In an Instagram story posted on Wednesday, October 14, Lundh confirmed that Moroccan police had arrested a Swedish national in Agadir who had been convicted in his home country of attempting to recruit people to commit murders.
She said the arrest was the fifth involving a wanted Swede in Morocco over the past month.
Thanking Moroccan police for their cooperation, Lundh said the two countries were working together to ensure that people wanted for serious crimes could not escape justice.
It was the second time in less than a month that the Swedish police chief had publicly acknowledged the Moroccan authorities’ role in arresting wanted nationals.
On September 17, she welcomed the arrest in Morocco of another Swede sought by Interpol over his alleged involvement in several violent crimes.
Lundh said at the time that Swedish police maintained close and regular contact with Abdellatif Hammouchi, director general of Morocco’s National Security Directorate (DGSN), and that information-sharing between the two services was helping prevent fugitives from evading justice across borders.
Swedish police had also thanked their Moroccan counterparts earlier in September following the extradition of two men suspected of involvement in major drug trafficking networks.
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The two Swedish nationals, aged 28 and 42, were extradited from Morocco, according to a September 4 statement by Swedish police.
One was described as the head of a network supplying major criminal groups in Sweden and other Nordic countries. He had been arrested at Tangier airport on March 30 under an Interpol red notice.
The other was suspected of helping transport large quantities of cannabis to Sweden between 2020 and 2021.
Jonas Hemmar, deputy head of the international unit at Sweden’s National Operations Department, said at the time that several Swedish criminals had been extradited from Morocco within a short period.
He thanked Moroccan police for what he described as their professional and constructive cooperation.
The same statement reported two further arrests in Morocco. One involved a man linked to a criminal network in western Sweden who was wanted for serious drug and firearms offenses.
The other concerned a 28-year-old who had evaded a prison sentence for aggravated assault against a woman and aggravated unlawful threats.
The arrests come after Hammouchi and Lundh signed a police cooperation agreement in Stockholm in April.
Lors du déplacement en Suède d'Abdellatif Hammouchi, patron du pôle DGSN-DGST.
The agreement covers action against criminals operating in or from Morocco, links between criminal networks in the two countries, and cross-border organized crime, including cybercrime and crime-as-a-service activities.
