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Two bodies found in trunk of burning car

Two dead bodies have been found in the trunk of a burned out car near Getinge between Halmstad and Falkenberg in western Sweden, prompting police to launch a murder investigation.

Published: 7 January 2010 08:45 CET
Updated: 7 January 2010 10:19 CET
Two bodies found in trunk of burning car

Shortly after 11pm on Wednesday night, emergency crews received a call about a car on fire on a bridge over the E6 motorway near Getinge.

The fire was intense, catching the attention of motorists passing by below on the E6.

Police initially reported that one person had been found in the trunk, but on Thursday morning police confirmed media reports that an additional body had been found in the wreckage.

The car was a red Volvo S60, but police are refusing to say if they know to whom the car was registered or whether they had contacted the owner.

According to the Svergies Radio’s local affiliate in Halland, one of the victims was a man, while the gender of the second victim remains unknown.

Police have released a statement requesting any eyewitnesses to come forward with information about the fire, which broke out shortly after 11pm on Wednesday night.

“The information we’re looking for includes sightings at the time of the fire or just before,” police spokesperson Caroline Bjerlestam told the TT news agency.

When emergency services had extinguished the flames they discovered the first body in the boot of the car.

“Because the person was found in the luggage trunk we can’t rule out that a serious crime has been committed,” lead investigator Håkan Andersson told the Kvällsposten newspaper.

“In order to not miss anything in the early stages of the investigation, we’ve launched a preliminary investigation into murder.”

The area has been blocked off and a forensic investigation was carried out. Later during the night, the charred remains of the car were moved to Halmstad to allow for a more thorough examination.

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CRIME

Tech giants promise ‘action plan’ on stopping Nordic gangs using apps for crime

The tech giants Google, Meta, Snapchat and TikTok have pledged to give details "within months" on how they will prevent gang leaders in Nordic countries using their products to carry out serious crimes, Denmark's justice minister said on Friday.

Published: 20 September 2024 16:11 CEST
Tech giants promise 'action plan' on stopping Nordic gangs using apps for crime

After meeting the companies along with other Nordic Justice Ministers in Uppsala, Sweden, Hummelgaard and Swedish counterpart Gunnar Strömmer said he now expected the companies to submit an “action plan” to crack down on the use of their apps to recruit young people to carry our shootings and commit other crimes. 

“I would like it to contain concrete steps on how to use the technology on the platforms to remove and screen content that helps to facilitate organised crime to a greater extent,” Hummelgaard said, while Strömmer said that although he was pleased an important step had been taken it “remains to be seen” how seriously the companies take the issue. 

READ ALSO: Danish gangs’ use of Swedish child hitmen is now a diplomatic issue

Ministers from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland met to discuss gang crime, which in recent months has increasingly been shown to cross national borders, with criminals from Sweden travelling to Denmark to carry out shootings and hand grenade attacks.

According to Hummelgaard, there have been “many examples” of gangs using social media and encrypted messaging services to plan serious crimes and recruit new criminals, with lists of the payments available for carrying out various criminal services  found circulating  on social media. 

“The way I see it, political patience is about to run out, not just in the Nordic countries, but in large parts of the Western world,” Hummelgaard said.

He said the four companies had made “a really good first step” in pledging to establish a “joint Nordic cooperation forum”, where they would exchange experience and share information with each other about the use of their products in the region for crime. But he said he wanted them to be “more concrete than that”. 

READ ALSO: Nordic justice ministers meet tech giants on gangs hiring ‘child soldiers’

Hummelgaard said that he tech giants had also asked that the police authorities in the Nordic countries to provide information on what kind of “groupings and names” are using their services and how “they communicate”, so that the content can “be removed immediately”. 

“I sense that they have a clear desire and will to cooperate with us. I think that is positive,” he said. “I would also like to say that until today this has not been the experience of many of our law enforcement authorities around the Nordic countries.” 

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