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A 19-year-old from Norway has been convicted and sentenced to 20 years in detention for traveling to the UK with the intent to carry out an assassination on behalf of an organized crime syndicate. Johannes Natland was found in a hotel room in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in March 2025, in possession of two functional handguns and 19 rounds of live ammunition. This information was revealed during proceedings at the Old Bailey.
The court was informed during Natland’s retrial that he had been “recruited” by the Foxtrot Network, a Swedish criminal organization reportedly supported by the Iranian regime. Although Natland pleaded guilty to possessing the firearms and ammunition, a jury unanimously convicted him of conspiracy to murder. His sentencing took place at Woolwich Crown Court. The Foxtrot Network has received sanctions from both the UK and the United States due to its ties with the Iranian government, but the identity of Natland’s intended victim has not been disclosed.
Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, stated: “We haven’t been able to establish exactly who the intended victim was.” The Foxtrot Network is noted for adopting a novel strategy of outsourcing violent acts to teenage operatives, a tactic that Europol has described as “violence-as-a-service” (VaaS). During sentencing, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb remarked, “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 had arrived in Manchester on the 17th of March, 2025, just after turning 18, using an emergency passport. He was directed via videos shared on the Signal messaging app to Huddersfield, where weapons, a stolen vehicle, and cash were concealed. His planned attack was thwarted when Norwegian authorities arrested the teenage recruiter linked to the Foxtrot Network and uncovered messages about the UK operation on his phone. As Commander Flanagan explained, “There was pressure because he’d come into the country, and we knew his intention was to carry out a murder on UK soil. We had to move at pace and we intervened really quickly, and just before he sort of moved towards committing that murder.” On arrest, Natland was found at the Briar Court Hotel with two handguns stashed beneath his bed, and reportedly mimed shooting officers when confronted.
Originally from Stavanger in south-west Norway, Natland had shown promise as a young footballer but began using drugs at the age of 13 and eventually dropped out of school. He admitted to the Old Bailey that by the previous year, he was consuming drugs nearly every day. His drug use triggered paranoia, leading him to believe that his parents intended to harm him, resulting in a stay in a psychiatric unit diagnosed with drug-induced psychosis. His defense lawyer, Paul Hynes KC, explained that Natland’s “mental illness was exacerbated, if not created, by the self-induced consumption of drugs,” which impaired his capacity to make sound decisions. Natland also disclosed that during a brief stay in a “home for problem children,” he encountered one of his future recruiters for the Foxtrot Network—a teenager using the username UnknownHustler
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