Swedish police are grappling with a significant backlog of unsolved firearm murders, with 459 open investigations into such crimes at the end of 2025, according to police statistics. The number represents a dramatic increase from 2013, when Sweden had only 95 open firearm murder investigations. Police officials acknowledge being overwhelmed during the peak of gang violence in recent years.
"We have a debt from the fact that there was a period when we became overloaded," said Tobias Bergkvist of the Stockholm regional police. The highest number of open cases are in the Stockholm region, followed by the southern region. Police note that while shootings have decreased and clearance rates have improved to around 70 percent nationally, the exceptional violence levels of recent years have left a mountain of unresolved cases.
Stockholm had a clearance rate of about 20 percent at one point, leading to many open cases.
" Police continue to work on cold cases, hoping for technical breakthroughs or new witness information to help solve these crimes.
There is a debt from a period when police were overloaded and initially lacked the capacity to handle the explosive development of firearm violence.
The statistics are a compilation of an incredibly problematic development.
A method involving an 'unbroken chain of reaction' that spread across regions was crucial.