The police described the arrest as a "strategic breakthrough," adding that the man has been under an international for a while and is one of Europol's most wanted criminals.
"This person is very close to the top leader of Foxtrot," national police chief Petra Lundh told a press conference. "He orders murders, he's been sitting in Iraq issuing these murder orders."
He is suspected, among other things, for instigating a mass shooting in Gävle last year. He has also been detained in absentia by multiple district courts in Sweden for a number of crimes, including instigation to commit murder, attempted instigation to commit murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
He has been arrested in Iraq for crimes committed in Iraq, and as a dual Swedish-Iraqi citizen it is unlikely that he will be extradited to Sweden.
"It's good that he has been neutralised, at least," Lundh said, with deputy national police chief Stefan Hector adding that the important thing is that the man will no longer be able to instigate crimes in Sweden.
"At the end of the day we're satisfied that he's been arrested and can no longer order that murders be committed," he said.
Another person related to Foxtrot was arrested at the same time as the 21-year-old. In recent years, Swedish police have managed to arrest a number of central Swedish gang figures abroad, even agreeing for them to be extradited to Sweden, in part as a result of relation-building, collaboration and other established routes of contact with justice systems in other countries.
In the case of the 21-year-old, Swedish police managed to get Iraqi police interested in the man's case.
"We put it this way: We would like this man to be arrested and handed over but if that's not possible then we want to draw your attention to the fact that he's a problem for Iraq, too," Hector said.
He said that the man's arrest could have a serious effect on gang violence in Sweden.
"He is strategically very important for the Foxtrot gang."
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