Sweden’s publicly-funded national radio broadcaster has named rapper Yasin Mahamoud ‘Artist of the Year’ as he awaits a possible trial related to alleged gang activity.
Sveriges Radio announced the migration-background rapper as the ‘Artist of the Year’ as well as ‘Hip Hop/R’n’B Artist of the Year’ on its P3 Gold award programme over the weekend.
Anna Karin Larsson, area manager for music at the broadcaster, noted that Yasin was not able to accept the award in person. He is currently being detained on suspicion of conspiracy to kidnap another Sweden-based performer, Expressen reports.
Police arrested Yasin on New Year’s Eve, and he and around 20 others are suspects in the case, with several believed to be linked to the criminal gang known as the Vårby Network.
Some of the evidence has been obtained by French police, who have intercepted many messages on the encrypted EncroChat programme used by criminal networks across the continent in recent months after breaching its security.
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 21, 2019
The arrest is not the first for Yasin, who was detained in January 2020 on suspicion that he was involved in the fatal shooting of a 20-year-old former friend on New Year’s Eve 2019.
All of the suspects and the victim were said to be members of the Shottaz Network gang, which is based in the Stockholm no-go zone of Rinkeby.
According to Expressen, while the charges against Yasin for attempted murder were later dropped, he has been convicted on weapons offences.
The EncroChat breach has had an effect on organised gangs in Sweden since its first took place last year.
In the southern multicultural city of Malmö, for example, the murder rate has decreased within the last two years, with police saying that the EncroChat data helped them prevent killings and violent crimes in the city.
EncroChat data has also implicated two migration-background lawyers in Stockholm who are accused of leaking sensitive and classified information to the Vårby Network.
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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 20, 2018
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