Surge in contract killings as gangs recruit kids

"Bro, I can't wait for my first dead body," wrote an 11-year-old boy on Instagram in Sweden, where gangs recruit children too young to be prosecuted as contract killers on chat apps.

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"Stay motivated, it'll come," answered his 19-year-old contact.

He went on to offer the child SEK150,000 (about R247,000) to carry out a murder, as well as clothes and transport to the scene of the crime, according to a police investigation of the exchange last year in the western province of Varmland.

In this case, four men aged 18 to 20 are accused of recruiting four minors aged 11 to 17 to work for a criminal gang.

All were arrested before carrying out the crimes.

The preliminary inquiry contains a slew of screenshots that the youngsters sent to each other of themselves posing with weapons, some with bare chests or donning hooded masks.