Criminal gangs are recruiting children as young as 13 across Europe for violent acts such as planting exposives, shootings and physical assault, cross-border investigative agency Europol has warned.

Europol arrested 280 people last year in connection with incidents in which youngsters were allegedly hired to commit violent crimes. Almost two-thirds of the suspects are accused of carrying out the recruitment.

Some of the cases cross European borders, such as a shooting in Oosterhout, Noord-Brabant a year ago in which three men were killed. The three suspects, aged between 24 and 28, came from Sweden and were arrested last June in Sweden and Germany.

Local journalist Sjoerd Marcelissen, from BN DeStem, described what appeared to be a well-planned operation in which the suspects transferred from a car to electric scooters so they could travel along a cycle path to reach their target.

Dutch teenagers have also been hired for criminal assignments in other European countries, including a 15-year-old who was arrested after a suspected Russian mafia leader was shot in a restaurant in Hamburg last January.

Andy Kraag, who specialises in serious organised crime for Europol, said gangs were increasingly using social media channels such as Snapchat and Telegram to find new recruits.

Spreading like wildfire

“This phenomenon of violence as a service is spreading like wildfire across Europe,” he told Nieuwsuur. “We’re seeing it in all countries with increasingly young children: 13 or 14 is no exception, the violence is getting worse and it’s happening online.”

Kraag said gangs had set up European-wide networks of recruiters, who advertise criminal contracts on social media and gaming platforms that are popular with teenagers and people in their early twenties.

They make contact with the recruits through encrypted messages and put them in touch with a “fixer” who arranges transport, hotels and weapons.

“These children are used as cannon fodder while the criminals keep their hands clean,” said Kraag. “They lure them in by promising they’ll be paid for the job, but in nine out of 10 cases they get no money, they’re arrested by the police and the only winners are the criminals.”

Kraag added that the youngsters were ordered to film their deeds to prove they had carried out their orders, and that the footage was then shared on social media to attract new recruits.

“We see films of young people being caught in barbed wire, setting each other on fire, using knives and torture and firing automatic weapons,” he said. “They put it back on social media in order to glorify the [criminal] lifestyle.”