When Nobody's Listening
Inside Sweden's Drug Gangs

Diamant Salihu (Author), Jan Salomonsson (Translated by)

9781509564637, Polity Press

Hardback, published 18 April 2025

384 pages
21.8 x 14.7 x 3.8 cm, 0.59 kg

“No one has covered Sweden's violent gang wars with as much insight, nuance and empathy as Diamant Salihu. His book is a cinematic tale of shady characters, blood feuds and international intrigue, all set in a Scandinavian welfare state fraying at the edges. A must-read for anyone interested in the evolution of European organized crime.”
Sune Engel Rasmussen, Security Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and author of Twenty Years: Hope, War and the Betrayal of an Afghan Generation

“Mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand the mechanisms of gang crime … with an energy that makes it hard to put down.”
Jönköpings-Posten

“The story [Diamant Salihu] has pursued for the last decade is, in effect, one giant, unsolved murder mystery: why has Sweden, long the envy of the rest of Europe for its peace and prosperity, suddenly seeing so many gangland killings?”
The Telegraph

“Salihu tells a story not of heroes and villains but of the brave and the cowardly, where no one has an unlimited wellspring of either trait.”
Charlie Bentley-Astor, The Critic

In a quiet little town in northern France, an improbable sequence of events takes place which will go on to transform completely the struggle against organised crime in Europe. It all starts when the French cybercrime police hacks into an encrypted service called Encrochat: suddenly anonymity crumbles and murder contracts and drug deals become visible on the screen. Police are able to follow communications between drug couriers, gang leaders, and teenage hitmen in real time.

To save lives, the police must respond quickly, but must also be careful not to reveal that they’re listening in. As unexpected arrests of criminals grow increasingly frequent, criminal networks come into view, with nodes dotted all across Europe, all prepared to do whatever it takes to gain control of the drug trade. One name in particular will come to haunt the investigators: the Kurdish Fox, a notorious gang leader with ambitions to become the Pablo Escobar of Scandinavia.

Diamant Salihu’s gripping story lifts the veil on a shadowy underworld swathed in secrecy but responsible for some of today’s most violent crimes.

Contents

Main Characters
Prologue


Part 1: Pandora’s Box
February 2020 – April 2020

Part 2: The Chain
March 2020

Part 3: D-Day
May 2020-June 2020

Part 4: Foxtrot
March 2020-August 2020

Part 5: The Honey Trap
September 2020-June 2021

Part 6: The Fox Hunt
September 2021-December 2022

Part 7: When No One Listens
January 2023-March 2023


Thanks

Subject Areas: Sociology & anthropology [JH]