Costa del Sol horror: Swedish mafia uses teen hitmen and orders murders ‘like a pizza’.
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A new horror trend is emerging right on the sunny Costa del Sol: Swedish crime bosses are hiring in teenagers, sometimes barely old enough to drive, as contract killers.
These are the so-called “baby hitmen” and are being recruited using encrypted messaging apps. And then they’re deployed across southern Spain, according to police sources.
A worrying trend (and a really sick business model)
So, you’re now surely asking: why go for minors? The answer is cold and cynical. Because these kids are cheap, disposable and also daring. According to a police investigator, what would once cost the gang €50,000–€60,000, now costs just around €20,000 to outsource to an underage killer.
This is a brutal business model, especially as these teenagers aren’t tied into the gang long-term. This way, the big bosses remain shielded.
A police officer, cited by El Pais, described one ringleader (a 15‑year-old) as “ordering murderers like someone orders a pizza.” That kid used Telegram and Signal under aliases like “Donald Trump” and “The Recruiter” to hire other teenagers.
The price for a “baby hitman”
The pay for these young hitmen? Reports say around €4,000–€5,000 for one job. Sometimes they’re promised more than that, up to €20,000–€50,000, but many end up scammed. Or even worse, they become trapped in debt to the gang.
Recruiters lean into encrypted platforms and apps, because these are more difficult to track by the police.
Light sentences
And here’s the kicker: because many of the perpetrators are minors, the legal system barely bites. In one case, a 15‑year-old ringleader was technically facing a 20‑plus-year sentence for attempted murder and recruitment. In the end, he got only two years in a juvenile detention centre.
“The sentences are very light, which is why they use minors for this type of work,” says journalist Diamant Salihu, speaking to El Pais.
Real cases, real danger
In August 2025, Spanish police arrested two young men in Malaga, one of them under 18, who had allegedly flown in from Sweden to carry out a hit. They were picked up riding an e-scooter, wearing hoods and balaclavas. There’s more to the story: inside their rented apartment, officers found firearms, 15 phones and 16 SIM cards, basically the full hitman starter kit.
Then there’s the Fuengirola case: a 17‑year-old allegedly shot dead a Dutch national outside a cannabis club using an assault rifle. Investigators later traced the weapon back to Paris and uncovered a whole cross-border logistics chain involving recruitment and transport.
The cruel truth is that these crime networks are now treating murder like a commodity. The kids are simply being used, like some disposable instruments. With light sentencing and low costs, the incentives are disturbingly clear. Unless some cross-border cooperation and tougher juvenile justice reform ramp up, this type of business seen until now just in the movies could rise even more.
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