Four men are being prosecuted for aggravated robbery against a Swedish family living in the Swedish countryside. The robbery drama, however, ended in a dramatic fashion, where the robbers were chased off – and one of them was shot.

It was late in the evening on September 27 last year that the masked robbers struck. They snuck up to a house in the countryside outside of Tierp.

– We were sitting upstairs watching TV. Suddenly, there was a noise on the stairs, and then there were four masked men, says one of the men in the affected family.

Cryptocurrency

The masked robbers waved pistols, tied up their victims, and subjected them to so-called mock executions. They were after cryptocurrency, something they knew the targeted family had their savings in.

Under threat, the family was forced to transfer all their savings, about 2.5 million SEK in cryptocurrency, to the robbers.

One of the men in the family realized he had been at the computer, talking to other family members via Discord, when the robbers stormed into the house. And he still had his headset on.

He muted the headphones but turned up the microphone volume so that other Discord participants could hear what was happening.

– I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I’m a student, he said among other things.

Many family members are hunters and have weapons at home, and some of them brought their weapons and drove directly to the house that had been attacked.

The Shootout

When the robbers realized that there were people outside the house there to save the tied-up family, they escaped out through a window. Then a brief shootout erupted between the robbers and their victims and the family members who came to the rescue.

One of the robbers was hit by a shot in the shoulder.

– I was completely convinced that now there’s going to be a shootout and now I’m going to die. I was completely convinced that I didn’t want to die, and I didn’t want to shoot him. I had so many chances to do it but I didn’t want to shoot him, said one family member, who also stated that the robber pointed his weapon at him.

– Then I shoot. Here comes the shot. Bam!

The wounded robber, and another robber, were quickly apprehended when the police arrived. More people were arrested later in the fall.

Seven Prosecuted

Now, a total of seven people, six men and one woman, are being prosecuted for the robbery outside Tierp in September last year. Four of these are charged with aggravated robbery, while the other three are accused of serious money laundering, money laundering, and aggravated business money laundering.

All the accused have foreign backgrounds and come from countries including Eritrea and Mongolia.

The accused either deny the crimes or refuse to comment on the allegations.