THE HAGUE, Netherlands — In a landmark first year of operations targeting an emerging dangerous trend in European organized crime, an international law enforcement task force focused on dismantling ‘violence as a criminal service’ networks has secured 280 arrests, Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement cooperation agency, announced Wednesday.
The widespread arrests have pulled back the curtain on a growing cross-continental criminal pattern: criminal organizations are increasingly recruiting people — disproportionately young people — through social media platforms and encrypted messaging apps to carry out violent attacks, from brutal physical assaults to targeted assassinations. Europol officials have framed this model as a disturbing, illicit twist on the gig economy, where violence is contracted out on demand rather than planned and executed by established local criminal gangs alone.
In an official statement, Europol emphasized that this shifting criminal landscape has moved far beyond the traditional boundaries of isolated, local incidents of violence. “Violence is no longer confined to isolated acts or local dynamics. It is increasingly offered as a service: accessible, scalable and driven by online ecosystems that enable recruitment, coordination, and execution across borders,” the agency noted.
Launched one year ago, the task force brings together specialized law enforcement units from 11 European nations: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Over its first 12 months of coordinated investigations, the joint operation has identified more than 1,400 individuals tied to these transnational violence-for-hire networks.
Among the high-profile arrests made through the task force’s work are a Dutch national charged with acting as a getaway driver for two minors suspected of carrying out a series of explosions across Germany in mid-2025. In a separate cross-border case, a minor was taken into custody in Sweden earlier this year in connection with a shooting outside a prison in the Dutch city of Alphen aan den Rijn.
Beyond the arrests already completed, Europol has added three top suspected network leaders to Europe’s most-wanted online portal. Two of the men are Swedish nationals, and the third is German. All three are wanted on charges including murder, large-scale drug trafficking, and money laundering for their alleged leadership roles within the illicit violence-as-a-service structure.