The Laser Man: How a Failed Stock Trader Became Sweden's Most Notorious Far-Right Criminal

Countries & Cities · Published 15 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: John Ausonius, known as the Laser Man, terrorized Stockholm and Uppsala in the early 1990s. Driven by xenophobia and financial desperation, he targeted immigrants with a laser-sighted rifle. His amateurish weapon modifications likely saved many victims, yet his legacy remains a dark chapter in Swedish criminal history.

Born Wolfgang Alexander Zaugg in 1953, the man who would become John Ausonius grew up in a working-class suburb of Stockholm. After failing to graduate from the Royal Institute of Technology and struggling with his identity, he legally changed his name and adopted a yuppie lifestyle. He initially found success trading stocks and bonds, but his fortune evaporated due to poor investments and a severe gambling addiction. Facing financial ruin, he turned to bank robbery, committing over eighteen heists to maintain his lifestyle.

Between August 1991 and January 1992, Ausonius launched a series of shootings targeting immigrants in the Stockholm and Uppsala area. He earned his nickname from the laser sight he mounted on his rifle, which victims reported seeing as a red light before the shots were fired. Despite his intent to kill, his weapon performance was poor; he had amateurishly sawed off the barrels and stocks of his guns, which likely deviated the bullets' trajectories and allowed most of his eleven victims to survive. Only one victim, Jimmy Ranjbar, died from the initial wave of attacks.

Ausonius was arrested in June 1992 during a bank robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994. His case gained significant cultural attention, notably through Gellert Tamas’s 2002 bestseller, which contextualized his actions within the rise of xenophobic sentiment in early 1990s Sweden. Beyond his Swedish convictions, Ausonius was extradited to Germany in 2016, where he was sentenced to life in 2018 for the 1992 murder of Holocaust survivor Blanka Zmigrod. He returned to Sweden in 2019 to serve his sentences, with multiple appeals for a commuted term rejected due to assessments of his ongoing risk to society.

The psychological profile of Ausonius remains a subject of scrutiny. Forensic experts have cited autism and personality disorders as factors in his potential to re-offend. His life story, marked by a desperate attempt to assert a 'true Swedish' identity through violence, continues to be analyzed as a reflection of the social tensions present in Sweden during that era.

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