warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised
A Swedish hitman who murdered a father-of-two in front of his family has been jailed for life. Flamur Beqiri, 36, was shot dead in front of his screaming wife as she shielded their two-year-old son. The murder happened on the doorstep of his £1.7 million home in Battersea, south-west London, on Christmas Eve in 2019.
we delve into the chilling and complex case of Flamur Beqiri, a Swedish-Albanian man and former record label executive who was tragically murdered on Christmas Eve 2019 in front of his family in Battersea, London. Flamur’s shocking death, which unfolded in one of London’s wealthiest neighborhoods, sent shockwaves through the community and raised questions about ties to organized crime, international conflicts, and unresolved personal vendettas
lamur Beqiri, aged 36, was fatally shot just steps away from his home as he returned with his wife and young child after celebrating Christmas. The assassination bore the hallmarks of a professional hit, sparking speculation about its connection to his alleged involvement in criminal networks stretching across Europe. Authorities later linked his murder to broader underworld disputes and rivalries that spanned Sweden, Denmark, and beyond.
on christmans eve in 2019 what should have been a peacful night tok a deadly turn on a quiet affluent street in south london.
on the surface he was a family man and uccesful record company boss with a glamorous wife a reality star sister and an affluent lifestyle in london.
however, this was no ordinary killing and as investigators dug deeper the layers of his past and ties to an international criminal underworld began to surface.
but who was flamur Beqiri and how did a former swedish music promoter with albanien roots end up living in the UK marked for death.flamur was more than just a london resident,his life was entangled in an international web of organized crime.
stretching from sweden to denmark and beyond.
while he tried tomove his family to the UK for a fresh start.his past wasn’t so easy to escape.
madness in malmö
to understand flamur beqiri’s murder we need to travel to malmö, sweden.a city with a dark undercurrent of organized crime.
flamur grew up here and quickly found himself entangled in a dangerous world born to albanien parents ,he became involved with local criminal networks early on.
malmö’s criminal scene has long been dominated by violent gang rivalries and drug trafficking and flamur’s connections ran deep.
he had claimed to be running a record label in the UK, but swedish detectives police knew him to be among the most feared gangsters in the country.
a leading member of a drug gang beqini fled malmö for brittain with his family and a fellow gang member amid intensifying violence.
in the malmö underworld his gang was known as ” the alliance”.who rivaled with another group led by a man known as the boxer.
flamur beqiri a leading light in the alliance moved to london in 2017, bought the property in his wife’s name for 1.7 million pounds to try to create distance from the violence threatening his young family at home.
dispate installing top quality CCTV ..
he was shot dead on the doorstep in front of his wife and child.
his gang, responsible for massive importations of drugs via sweden sports
faced a growing threat from a group led by amir mekky known as the ” boxer”.
beqiri’s wife deborah krasniQi appeared aware of the threat to her husband and his freind naief adawi who had also moved to Battersea ,minutes after baqiri was shot dead , she made a phone call to adawi.she finished the call by ” someone might be coming for you too”
adawi had already survived one attempt on his life when a gunman opened fire as he left his malmö apartment in august 2019 carrying his newborn baby daughter.
the gunman confronted 33 year old adawi outside a falafel shop in the upmarket district. when adawi handed over the baby to carolyn and fled ,the assassin turned his gun on her.
she was riddled with bullets before the assassin finished her off with a shot to the head as she lay dying on the pavement.
carolyn came from a law -abiding family and had trained as a doctor in poland before moving to sweden.
her husband in contrast, was a leading criminal who in 2008 was in a 20 strong gang who stole 62 million danish kronor,7 million in sterling in one of denmark’s biggest ever cash in tansit robberies.
he was caught and jailed for 8 years, though most of the gang remain at large and almost all of the money remains unrecovered.
the same year beqiri was named as one of sweden’s most wanted men,over 2 million cannabis smuggling operation.
as previously mentioned beqiri and adawi were affiliated with the alliance gang based in malmö which was under the leadership of daniel johansson petrovski.
together beqiri, adawi and petrovski operated a business named “capital cars.”
allthough it is widely believed that this enterprise served as a facade for their illicit operations.
patrovski found himself entangled in a conflict with a competing syndicat led by amir mekky a danish criminal of moroccan descent.
the feud ignited in june 2018 when mekky’s kidnapped petrovki’s half brother.allthough he was eventually released petrovski was resolute in his pursuit of vengeance .
in june 2018 three members of mekky’s gang was shot and killed at a café in central malmö.
petrovski is also believed to have orchestrated the assassination of sacharia el- khayatti who had been apprehended by police in connection with the kidnapping but was subsequently released.
a fullscale war erupted within the criminal underworld
and after failing to eliminate adawi and being unable to flush out petrovski ,mekky set sight eye’s on baqiri as his next targt.
christmas eve 2019 baqiri and his wife deborah dined at the colbert resturant in sloan square.
deborah later recounted in court that her husband had instructed her to enter ther resturant first , take a sit at their table and capture a photograph,only after these did he enter ,simingly assured that the area was safe.
by 9:00 p.m. they had departed the resturant, collected their 2 year old son from a nanny and crossed the river thames.
a CCTV camera positioned outside biqiri’s residence in Battersea recorded the family’s arrival with the young boy in the center holding each parents hand.
as they paused for alex to open te garden gate a shadowy figure emerged behind them and discharged nine rounds, eight of those shots struck their intended target and as assalant fled deborah ‘s screams were captured by the CCTV’s audio system.
alex sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at 9:46 p.m.
a short time later deborah contacted adawi who was also in london and cautioned him
they may be tarheting you next . be careful.”
that evening as the rest of london was gearing up for christmas celebrations detevtives initiated a murder investigation.
by december 27th they had pinpointed the apartment in oyster wharf to which the assalant had returned aftr the shooting of baqiri.
estevan pino- munizaga a swedish national of chilean descent had secured the flat through AirBnB from a retiree named jeannette dickinson.
prior to the murder ,she sent him an email.
on december 27th ,detectives contacted mrs dickinson by phone in spain and found out she ha rented it out to a swede.
the following day mrs dickinson messaged pino- munizaga.
in fact ,it was not pino- munizaga who had been seen entering the flat after the murder .
he was safely back in sweden by then.
the gunman was anis hemissi a swede of tunisian origin, who arrived in london a few days before the hit and flew out in the early hours of christmas day morning.
when detectives raided the apartment in oyster wharf,they found it was a treasure trove for forensic investigators,who recovered gunshot residue from the ridgeback bike used by hemissi in his gateaway.
officers also found the litter picker and black binbags used as par of he’s disguise.
DNA and fingerprints from hemissi as well as pino -munizaga were also found on items such as drinks containers,food and rubbish
crucially for the investigation in one of the bins was a ripped up piece of ticket stub with part of hemissi’s name on it.
officers were able to track the killer to heathrow from where ge flow to copenhagen ,denmark in the early hours of christmas day using his own name.
meanwhile…
bank records obtained by swedish police showed the gunman had bought a high viz jacket and trousers boots and a black beanie hat along with a latex mask and litter picker to pose as a street cleaner.
the shooting was a professional hit and bore all the hallmarks of serious orginazed crime however other careless mistakes has also been made.
one of which was the choice of the distinctive dark green ladies designed bicycle with with a basket on the front used by the gunman in reconnaissance.
the bike stood out when a male was on it but was the common stepover design written by men and women in sweden.
hemissi stopped using the bike along with his high viz litter pickers disguise after he was confronted by a resident who find it suspicious that he was cleaning both a private estate and and a council road.
he was arrested one month later in january 2020 at copenhagen airport after arriving from thailand where he had gone to lay low after the shooting.
two ears after his arrest hemissi and his co-defendant pino- munizaga was found guilty at the old baily,while two other swedish individuals tobias anderson and bawer karaer, who briefly visited the oyster wharf aprtmant in london were aquitted.
Bawer karaer, the 21 year old cousin ahmet along with andersson testified that they had been deceived into traveling to london by ahmet karaer.
Bawer recounted that his cousing ahmet had requested his assistance in the burglary of valuable watches,promising him a payment of 23 ,000 kronor, about £ 1,800 for his efforts.
initially instructed to rent a car bawer was unable to do so due to his age and was subsequently directed to purchase a bicycle which he was to deliver to an individual near the oyster wharf apartment.
he described the enounter wit the man later identified has hemissi,who uttered a single word.
” stockholm” before leaving the bicycle.
hemissi departed london in the early hours of christmas day.
later that day bawer caraer allowed two brittish, clifford rollox and claude isaac castor into the apartment,where they took a suitcase and a bag, that unbeknownst to him contained the firearm used in the murder.
the subsequent trial revealed that that the murder of alex baqiri was orchestrated through encro chat, the encrypted communication platform favored by major criminal organizations by an individual named ahmet karaer who since disappeared.
Ahmet karaer ,a resident of stockholm was likely acting under the directives of amir mekky who managed to remain elusive and may have eliminated karaer to ensure he could not lead authorities to him.
upon returning to sweden and learning of the murder of a swedish man on christmas eve bawer karaer confronted his cousin ahmet karaer ,who claimed he had been deceived by someone. shortly thereafter, ahmet karaer traveled from sweden to egypt where he was subsequently apprehended for drug trafficking.
on january 21st 2020 ,two explosion occured in the stockholm suburbs of husby and kista. inflicting significant damage to two apartment buildings inhabited by karaer’s family.
during the baqiri murder trial it was disclosed that karaer was heavily in debt due toh his gambling addiction and had taken out loans in his own name as well as in the names of family members.
he had also borrowed from unsavory individuals ,including a swedish gang known as :
” Death Patrol”.
at the time of the bombings these creditors were persuing him for repayment,however the fate of ahmet karaer remains uncertain.
in february 2020 bawer karaer reported receiving a snapshat call from his cousin who was incarcerated in egypt, he requested 200,000 kronor around £ 16,000 to resolve his issues and asked bawer to seek assistance from the family in raising the funds.
bawer however chose not to provide any help.
in september 2020, the swedish embassy was informed that ahmet karaer had been deported back to sweden from egypt,yet there is no documentation confirming his arrival in stockholm.
the following month just a day befor his own arrest bawer karaer received another snapchat call from his cousin,who when asked about his whereabouts replied that ;
” it was better you don’t know”
bawer speculated that his cousin might be in hiding in the kurdish city of diyarbakir,eastern turkey.the karaer family is kurdish and bawer said thay had immigrated to sweden before he was born.
but it is equally possible that amir mekky had ahmet karaer killed to prevent him linking him to the baqiri murder or that the death patrol or others he owed money to finally caught up with him.
when anis hemissi was finally sentenced at the Old Baily in february in 2022 he was given a life sentence and told he must serve a minimum of 35 years.
estevan pino- munizaga sentence was 15 years in which he will serve 2/3 before being released on parole.
clifford rollox and claude isaac castor were given three years each.