BBC examines the Foxtrot network and its use of young people for contract killings. It uses the 19-year-old from Stavanger as an example, the one who was arrested at a hotel in Huddersfield with two pistols and cash. The BBC advances a striking hypothesis: that Majid Nawaz is based in Tehran and, in order to be allowed to operate the network from there, Foxtrot must place itself at the disposal of the regime.
This raises entirely new questions: Was the 19-year-old from Stavanger supposed to carry out a political assassination, either of a Jew or of someone who was politically troublesome for the Iranian regime? This places the case in an entirely different light and may explain both why the authorities are treating it so seriously and why the Norwegian has refused to explain who the intended target was.
Few would willingly cross both the Foxtrot network and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The BBC uses the Norwegian’s full name and an uncensored photograph. JN was to receive NOK 270,000 for the job – a relatively large sum.
It is SVT journalist Diamant Salihu who describes the Iran–Foxtrot connection:
“The regime orders the leader of the Foxtrot network to instruct his network to carry out attacks against the enemies of the Iranian regime,” he said.
“It could be dissidents, journalists who oppose the regime, and it could also be Israeli targets.”
The links to the Iranian regime emerged after October 2023, when Majid fled to Tehran, Salihu said.
“He had to make a deal in order to live freely in Iran, on the condition that he and his network worked for the regime.”
On 14 April 2025, the British government announced:
Today, the UK has announced sanctions against the notorious criminal network Foxtrot Network and its leadership.
The Iranian regime uses criminal gangs around the world to intimidate people. The UK has taken action against this criminal network and its leader, Rawa Majid, because of their involvement in violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of the Iranian regime. The UK will not tolerate these threats.
One month earlier, British police had arrested the Norwegian JN in a hotel room in Huddersfield.
He had been given the “job” by a contact at a youth institution where he had been staying. The contact went by the name UnknownHustler. This individual was connected to Generalen (“the General”), whom we know as the 15-year-old who was placed in a child welfare institution and organised killings for Foxtrot.
It was UnknownHustler who first sent N. an online request asking someone to carry out a killing in the United Kingdom – “Killing in England 270k” (NOK 270,000 corresponds to approximately £21,000). The request came from another teenager using the username Generalen. Generalen – who was 16 years old at the time and had lived in children’s homes for the previous three years – later recruited N. for the murder.
Generalen has recently been sentenced to 14 years of preventive detention (forvaring), a sentence without precedent in Norwegian legal history.
It was when he was arrested that investigators found the murder plans for Huddersfield on his mobile phone.