Norwegian teen 'hitman' detained for UK murder plot
Johannes Natland, 19, travelled to West Yorkshire to carry out a "hit" in March last year.
Norwegian teen 'hitman' detained for UK murder plot
Johannes Natland was found guilty of conspiracy to murder
A teenager who came from Norway to the UK to carry out a "hit" for an organised crime group has been given 20 years detention.
Johannes Natland, 19, was arrested in a hotel room in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in March 2025 with two working guns and 19 rounds of live ammunition, the Old Bailey had previously heard.
At his retrial, jurors were told the teen had been "recruited" by the Foxtrot Network, described as a Swedish organised crime group supported by the Iranian regime.
Natland, who had admitted possessing the firearms and ammunition, was unanimously convicted of conspiracy to murder and sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday.
The Foxtrot Network has been sanctioned by both the UK and the US over its close ties to the Iranian government, while Natland's intended victim remains unknown.
Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said: "We haven't been able to establish exactly who the intended victim was."
The Foxtrot Network is known for helping to pioneer a relatively new trend of hiring teenage killers, which Europol has described as "violence-as-a-service" (VaaS).
At the sentencing hearing, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told Natland: "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 flew into Manchester Airport on an emergency passport on 17 March 2025, soon after his 18th birthday.
He was directed by videos on the messaging app Signal to Huddersfield, where the guns, a stolen car and a stash of cash had been hidden.
He was stopped from carrying out the hit after Norwegian police arrested the teenager who had recruited him for the Foxtrot Network and found messages about the UK plot on his phone.
That triggered a race against time to locate Natland before he found his unknown target in England.
"There was pressure because he'd come into the country, and we knew his intention was to carry out a murder on UK soil," said Flanagan.
"We had to move at pace and we intervened really quickly, and just before he sort of moved towards committing that murder."