The Swedish mobsters who terrorized the Costa del Sol cherish freedom

On May 12, 2018, David Ávila,

He got into his Audi RS3 parked next to the Virgen del Rocío church, in San Pedro Alcántara (Marbella, Málaga).

It was two in the afternoon and a motorist, dressed in black and with a dark full-face helmet, shot him five times in front of his wife and his two children.

They were leaving the communion of the youngest and Ávila died right there.

He then began one of the bloodiest stages on the Costa del Sol with numerous settling of scores and bombs.

The murderer escaped in a Yamaha TMAX and his journey to the Cortijo del Mar urbanization, five kilometers away, was the first clue that allowed the National Police to dismantle the most violent group of drug traffickers and hit men ever known in Andalusia.

Most of them are already serving their sentence in prison, but of the four ringleaders,

one has already been released on bail and another will be able to do so on November 26, four years after his arrest.

The Prosecutor's Office requests permanent reviewable prison for these four.

The trial remains undated, although it points to next spring.

The route of that motorist was "measured to the millimeter" and it was not easy to follow his track.

Several details, however, allowed it to be reconstructed and, later, to identify the group with which the unknown biker was traveling.

They were Swedish citizens, except for their leader, Amir Mekky, a Dane with a prior arrest warrant for forgery.

They all shared some very specific characteristics.

They were very young —none of them were older than 23 at the time— and they never went out to a party.

They didn't flaunt money either and lived discreetly.

Two of them traveled to Malaga to practice at a shooting gallery.

The agents of groups I and III of Organized Crime of Udyco Málaga who were in charge of the investigation describe them as cold, dry, and meticulous.

And capable of anything.

“His utter lack of values ​​is utterly appalling.

They had no problem killing,” says one of those responsible for that job.

Apparently, they had no connection to the victim.

To find out who they were dealing with, the police officers asked their Swedish counterparts for information.

The response left them stunned: the gang had 17 murders behind them in Malmö, where they were involved in drug trafficking.

They had moved to the Costa del Sol to control the merchandise at origin and with them they brought all their violence.

They broke the fragile stability of the drug trafficker in the area, which experienced two of its most violent years.

So much so that the National Police created a team dedicated exclusively to investigating account adjustments.

Settling of scores

The police work allowed us to land some hypotheses about that first murder.

Now the police consider that

's death originated because he was in charge of the security of a drug shipment intercepted by the security forces.

He was considered the culprit of the fiasco and had to pay for it.

They warned him twice.

In March 2018, a stolen SUV was driven into his gym, a business that he ran together with his partner Naoufal Mrabet, who a day later appeared burned in a Ferrari in Dubai in what the local authorities described as an accident.

A month later they burned down his beach bar, Heaven.

The third time they killed him.

It is believed that the reckoning was commissioned by Sofian Mohamed,

who was shot nine times three months later, on August 20 of that year.

The hypothesis is that Mekky — who was shot in the leg in June in Sweden during a shootout that left three of his henchmen dead — had not received the agreed-upon money for the murder and “unilaterally” decided to kill him.

He met him in Puerto Banús and when

returned home, a hitman from the Dane's gang was waiting for him on a bicycle.

He emptied the entire magazine.

Amir Mekky and Ahmad Abdul Karim were the leaders of the organization and their brothers, Fahkry Mekky —today free on bail after paying 20,000 euros— and Karim Abdul Karim were the members of the hard core of the band, which moved between Marbella and Estepona and controlled a part of the drug trade in Malmö.

The latter, moreover, is in prison convicted of the most violent event in memory on the Costa del Sol. On October 10, 2018, he planted, along with Preparim V. and Rami El M., a powerful bomb at Mohamed's house HH in Benahavís and another in his own workshop.

Days before a graffiti had appeared on one of the walls of the house: "117 + debt 30 + 60 + interest October 9".

It is believed that the hitmen asked him to account for what

.

And eight minutes after that deadline expired, at 00:08, they left a beach cooler loaded with between 10 and 15 kilos of explosives at the door of the house and lit a slow fuse.

The explosion ripped through the first floor.

Its shock wave displaced the entrance gate by 20 meters.

All three family dogs died.

Mohamed HH was on the second floor of the house with his wife and his two youngest children.

If they hadn't gone to sleep early that night, they wouldn't have counted.

The family has remained hidden ever since.

They suffer from anxiety, stress, panic and a continuous feeling of insecurity.

The three involved in the bombings had been observed by the police for up to an hour before they planted the bombs.

It was a routine follow-up by the investigators, who had the misfortune to consider that that night was just any night.

They lifted the surveillance when the criminals entered a Chinese bazaar.

"It seemed that things were calm... And, damn," says an agent now.

Their cars were marked and it was easy to locate them at the scene.

They were arrested weeks later and sentenced this April to 14 years behind bars.

In November 2018 the hard core of the organization fell: Karim Abdul Karim at his home in Marbella and Fahkry Mekky and Ahmed Abdul Karim in Sweden.

Amir Mekky was arrested a year and a half later in Dubai in an operation that tracked him across half the planet.

He was transferred to Spain and today he is still in jail.

The trial of the Abdul Karim brothers and the Mekky brothers was scheduled for last September, but it was suspended due to a series of appeals filed by their lawyers, according to the Prosecutor's Office.

There is still no new date, which is why a second member of the gang can be released on November 26 —despite the constant opposition of the Public Prosecutor— when he will serve four years in preventive detention.

The trial is expected to take place between February or March 2023,

The mistake that condemned his partners

 In August 2018, just eight days after the death of

Simon Philippe DM was shot five times and stabbed multiple times in a house in Mijas to death.

He had come accompanied by another person who was also injured by a large knife, but who managed to escape through the window in a mistake by his captors.

It was the key to the arrest of the perpetrator, Carl, hours later.

ER and four accomplices who helped him escape from him, frustrated by the Civil Guard.

The facts were judged this June whoever shot received 13 years in prison and the rest, two, except for Karim Abdul Karim, who was acquitted.

The police consider that this and the others are related facts, since Carl ER was a partner in Amir Mekky's gang in Sweden.

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