Europe Wrestles With Rise in Recruitment of Youngsters to Carry Out Violence

Europol said the crime often involves ’the use of young perpetrators to carry out threats, assaults, or killings for a fee.’

Police officers attend after a shooting at Clemenceau metro station in Brussels, Belgium on Feb. 5, 2025. Sylvain Plazy/AP

The European Union police force (Europol) recently launched an operational task force to “tackle the rising trend of violence-as-a-service” and the recruitment of young people by organized crime syndicates.

“Violence-as-a-service refers to the outsourcing of violent acts to criminal service providers,” Europol said in its April 29 announcement.

The agency said the crime often involves “the use of young perpetrators to carry out threats, assaults, or killings for a fee.”

“Investigations show that these acts are often orchestrated remotely, with young people recruited and instructed online,” Europol said.

Because the youth are hired by anonymous recruiters, hiding behind apps, the police are often unable to trace and prosecute them for any violence perpetrated.

Joris van der Aa, a crime reporter with the Gazet van Antwerpen in Belgium, said the announcement from Europol was “alarming” but not a surprise.

“There is no doubt crime-as-a-service has become a thing in recent years,” he told The Epoch Times.

“Young guys are being recruited on Snapchat, Telegram and Discord to carry out petrol bomb attacks and last-minute cocaine transactions,” van der Aa said.

The Europol task force, known as OTF GRIMM, is being led by Sweden, and comprises police forces from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands, all of whom have experienced a growth in contract killings, and other forms of violence and vandalism carried out by young freelancers.

Warning About TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat

A Swedish government website published a warning in October 2024 about organized crime networks recruiting young people.

“Criminal networks may make the first contact with a child by following them through apps like TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat. They often ask the child to download encrypted messaging services such as Signal or Telegram,” the warning said.

It said the organized crime networks often paid teenagers through Swish, a mobile payment app popular in Sweden.

In March, Hugo Kaaman, a researcher monitoring Sweden’s gang violence, told The Epoch Times that organized crime in Sweden is “out of control” and young teenagers were being hired anonymously to carry out murders and other crimes.

“Most of the people ordering hits are hiding abroad and actively advertise the opportunity to kill someone on social media for $5,000 to $20,000, and there are even young kids willing to do it for free, just for the clout,” he said.

A Spanish politician and former vice president of the European Parliament, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, has described the financial incentives offered to young people to carry out crimes of violence as “repulsive.”

Vidal-Quadras, 79, was shot at point-blank range in Madrid on Nov. 9, 2023, but miraculously survived.

In November 2024 he said during an online conference that the Iranian regime was working with the Netherlands-based Mocro Maffia (Moroccan mafia) gang and other organized crime syndicates to target dissidents and European nationals.

In a May 5 interview with The Epoch Times, Vidal-Quadras said he is not surprised by reports of organized criminals hiring people online to commit acts of violence.

He believes the Iranian regime uses different ways to carry out violence in Europe.

“One is outsourcing, hiring mafias to do it,“ he said. ”Another way is online messages to recruit young people and to radicalize them and transform them into their instruments.”

He said young people are being converted to “radical Islam on the web.”

Vidal-Quadras called it “particularly cruel.”

“Because a young boy of 15, 16, 17, is not yet able to rationalize things properly, so they are easy victims of this kind of psychological pressure.”

Vidal-Quadras said it appears youths, without political motives, are also carrying out violent acts for money.

‘Gamification Strategies’

Europol’s 2025 Serious and Organized Crime Threat Assessment states, “Young perpetrators are frequently exploited in several criminal markets and in several roles.”

The report says so-called “script kiddies,” who are often budding hackers gathered in online forums, are used to conduct cyber crime using existing scripts and tools provided to them.

Young people are also recruited to store drugs and weapons, and to deal narcotics—and now they’re being recruited for acts of violence.

“Criminals use tactics to lure young people, including tailored language, coded communication, and gamification strategies,” the report adds.

“Investigations show that there is a demand from the criminal realm for young perpetrators, but also that there is a supply of such perpetrators willing and looking for assignments to participate in violent acts.”

But it is not just acts of violence that young people are being recruited to carry out.

Image of Richard Ehemiere - who was later convicted of blackmailing teenage girls after being recruited on Discord - is arrested at his home in Hackney, London in April 2021. National Crime Agency

On May 1, Britain’s National Crime Agency posted on social media platform X a video of the arrest of Richard Ehiemere, who was 17 when he used the app Discord to obtain indecent images of girls in their early teens, and then tried to blackmail them by threatening to dox them, which is to publish on the Internet private identifying information about a person with malicious intent.

Ehiemere was given a suspended prison sentence at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London, on May 1, after being convicted of fraud and indecent images of children.

The National Crime Agency said it had been tipped off in January 2021 by staff at Discord, who were concerned about the activities of a group called CVLT, which appeared to have recruited Ehiemere.