A 19-year-old Norwegian man was found guilty of conspiracy to murder at London's Old Bailey on Tuesday, marking the latest conviction tied to a European "violence-as-a-service" scheme. Johannes Kongsnes Natland agreed to shoot an unidentified target for £21,600 before police arrested him in March 2025 at a hotel in Huddersfield with two firearms and ammunition.
Natland was recruited from a children's care home in Stavanger, Norway, into the Foxtrot Network, a Sweden-based organised crime group with ties to the Iranian government that has been sanctioned by Britain and the United States. His recruiter, a 17-year-old known as "Generalen," was convicted in Norway in May 2025 for involvement in the same plot. The case forms part of a broader Europol-identified phenomenon of contract killings outsourced to young recruits.
The trial follows the December 2025 arrest in Iraq of another suspect believed to be 22-year-old Ali Shehab Ahmed, known as "Agent 47."