Teenage Assassin for Iran-Linked Foxtrot Gang Jailed 20 Years for UK Murder Plot

A Norwegian teenager, Johannes Natland, 19, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for travelling to the UK to carry out a murder on behalf of the Iran-backed Foxtrot crime network. Natland was offered £21,000 ($28,000) to execute an unknown target. The Foxtrot network, led by Kurdish-born gangster Rawa Majid, has been sanctioned by the US and UK for orchestrating attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets for Iran. This network is notorious for recruiting teenagers through social media for what Europol terms 'violence-as-a-service'.

Justice Cheema-Grubb, in sentencing Natland, highlighted the Foxtrot network's method of recruiting young individuals for violent crimes, stating, "The Foxtrot network is an organised crime group which has developed an arm's-length method of recruiting young people to carry out violent crimes. You were recruited to travel to England to kill an unidentified target." Natland, from Stavanger, Norway, must serve a minimum of 13 years. He was apprehended in a hotel room in Huddersfield, northern England, in March 2025, possessing two firearms and ammunition. During his arrest, he mimicked holding a firearm and feigned shooting an officer, who recovered £2,000 in cash from the room.

While Natland admitted to possessing a semi-automatic pistol, a revolver, and ammunition, he denied conspiracy to murder, claiming he had no intention of proceeding with the plan. However, he was convicted in July after a retrial and received a 20-year detention sentence at London's Woolwich Crown Court. This case marks the first documented instance of the Foxtrot network planning an attack in Britain.

Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terror Police, stated, "Natland was arrested just hours before he was due to carry out an assassination here in the UK." She further explained, "Natland was clearly being tasked by someone in the Foxtrot Network, an organised criminal group...orchestrating violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of the Iranian regime." Although the intended target remains unidentified and no direct link to Iran was found in this specific case, Flanagan emphasized that Counter Terror Police will proactively disrupt hostile states attempting criminal acts in the UK. She noted the increasing use of criminal proxies by foreign states, who recruit individuals online with promises of financial reward, only for these operatives to be treated as disposable assets.

Natland is among several young adults recently tried in Britain for serious criminal acts allegedly committed after online recruitment for financial gain, often serving as unwitting proxies for foreign states. MI5 has reported over 50 arrests in the past year linked to Iran operations. Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service's special crime and counter-terrorism division, described Natland's actions as a "calculated plan to kill for money" and a demonstration of how organized crime networks operate internationally, exploiting young people for violence.

The court heard that Natland was recruited when an individual known as Agent 47 contacted a user named Generalen via social media, offering €25,000 ($24,306) for an assassination in the UK. Swedish police suspect Agent 47 to be Ali Shehab Ahmed, a senior Foxtrot network figure arrested in Iraq in December.