Police in the United Arab Emirates and Sweden have arrested seven people over an international money laundering network, and say following its cryptocurrency transactions led them to organized crime and contract killings.

The alleged leader, a Swedish national who had fled the country and was wanted under an Interpol Red Notice, was tracked down and detained in the UAE, the Emirates News Agency reported, citing the Ministry of Interior. Six other suspected members were arrested in Sweden at the same moment, with legal proceedings opened against all seven. The ministry has not named any of them.

The network handled about 70 million Swedish krona ($7.1 million), over ten months, the ministry said, dealing in cash proceeds from criminal activity and redirecting them to other criminal entities, while using cryptocurrencies "to transfer and move the value of those funds."

The crypto evidence chain

Tracing the cryptocurrency transactions and analyzing digital evidence "helped uncover financial links to other criminal activities, including organised crime and contract killings," the ministry said.

Sweden has been pushing its police to go after criminal crypto, with the country's Minister of Justice last year ordering forces to step up seizures of illicit digital assets. Contract killing is a documented problem there. Swedish police reported in May that 23 bystanders had been killed and 30 wounded in gangland shootings over three years, with gangs using social media and encrypted apps to recruit paid killers, often teenagers below the age of criminal responsibility.

Brigadier Abdulaziz Al Ahmad, director general of the Federal Criminal Police at the UAE Ministry of Interior, said the country would "continue to track criminal networks, disrupt their sources of financing, and take legal action against anyone seeking to exploit the country's territory for criminal activities."

Anders Wiberg, the Swedish Police Authority's police commissioner and head of its international division, called cooperation with the UAE "a key factor in achieving the successful outcome of this case."

The arrests were made simultaneously in both countries after what the ministry called extensive searches, investigations and close monitoring to identify the gang leader's whereabouts, following direct security coordination and intelligence sharing between the two governments.

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