Firearms allegedly diverted into illegal channels by a police officer near Sarajevo may have reached Iran-linked criminal networks across Europe, sources familiar with a Bosnian weapons-trafficking investigation told RFE/RL's Balkan Service.
The Bosnian State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), working with Europol, carried out searches this week at several locations across the country, detaining a police officer in the town of Ilijas. While under SIPA supervision, the officer obtained a gun and committed suicide.
He was suspected of misusing firearms permits issued to residents of the town and the surrounding area to purchase pistols from at least two Bosnian companies -- Bratunac and Doboj -- and rerouted them into illegal channels.
Information obtained by RFE/RL suggests that dozens of firearms were acquired by the criminal groupings through this path in 2024 and 2025.
Firearms For Iran-Linked Network
One of the supply chains described to RFE/RL allegedly led to Foxtrot, a Swedish criminal network under sanctions by the United States and Britain that has been the subject of international investigations in recent years for alleged links to the Iranian regime.
The network is associated with Rawa Majid, who was born to a Kurdish family in Iran and grew up in the Swedish city of Uppsala. Known as the Kurdish Fox, he has been wanted internationally since 2020 for alleged involvement in major drug offenses and the planning of murders, and has been named one of Sweden's most wanted criminals.
According to Swedish public broadcaster SVT, Majid moved from Europe to Iran in September 2023.
Citing information attributed to Israel's Mossad intelligence service, SVT reported he was then allegedly given a choice between imprisonment and cooperation with Iranian authorities.
In 2025, the US Treasury Department said Foxtrot had organized the January 2024 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm on behalf of the Iranian government, adding Majid had cooperated with Iran's Intelligence and Security Ministry.
SVT has alleged that Majid ran his network remotely for years, drawing on operatives who also carried out assignments for other criminal groups.
While it has not been officially confirmed that any of the weapons in the Bosnian investigation were used in Iran-linked attacks, sources familiar with the investigation told RFE/RL that weapons illegally obtained from Bosnia were used in at least five armed incidents linked to Foxtrot.
In 2024, Sweden's Security Service publicly confirmed that Iran was using Swedish criminal networks as proxies for violent operations in Sweden and other countries.
How Do These Networks Operate?
A plot against Arvin Khoshnood, a Swedish researcher and critic of the Iranian government, illustrates how different criminal networks can draw on the same operatives.
A target of assassination attempts, Khoshnood told RFE/RL that a man came to his home in September 2025 but failed to gain entrance. Police later found the researcher's personal details and messages about the plot on the man's phone, leading to five more suspects.
"When they arrested him, they found information about me on his phone: my photo, my name, my address, information about our car, and so on. They also found many messages, which allowed them to arrest five more people," he said.
All six involved in the case were minors -- including a 16-year-old -- at the time and were later convicted, including four for preparing to commit murder. Khoshnood said they had been offered 300,000 kronor (around $30,000) to kill him.
He said the recruits worked for Dante Peykar, whom SVT has linked to Iranian operations in Sweden. Although Foxtrot didn't seem to be behind the plot, the man who came to his home also carried out another shooting ordered by the network, Khoshnood said.
"They were essentially individuals working for various organizations and criminal networks and carrying out assignments for money," he explained.
The alleged use of intermediaries to recruit attackers has also emerged in a case in the Netherlands.
In March, a 36-year-old Dutch police employee of Iranian origin and a critic of the Iranian government was seriously wounded in a shooting in the town of Schoonhoven.
The suspect, Hasan B., has admitted to the shooting but said he had been recruited for the attack and did not know who the target was or why he was to be attacked, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service told RFE/RL.
The US Treasury described the actions as a model by which Tehran uses transnational criminal organizations as intermediaries in order to preserve plausible deniability.
