Meet Victor Nilsson: Grocery store owner, Serial Rapist, Serial Killer.
Kurt Wallander: How in the hell can you live like this... you kill innocent children for money!
Alfred Hardeberg: We don't kill any children. We tested how it worked by hiring some subcontractors who were willing to do such things. But that's why people do BETA-testing, to see the problems.
Wallander: Call it whatever you want. You're still killing a bunch of innocent children.
Alfred: In 10 years TLL will be sending bodies twenty-four seven all over the world and no one will care at all how it was done.
—Alfred talking about his organ trafficking, "The Man who Smiled" (2003).
Kurt Wallander has faced numerous foes, and in every adaptation it has had, the universe is a general Crapsack World. The following are especially vile.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Lassgard series
- "The Man who Smiled": Alfred Hardeberg and his daughter, Kristina are the masterminds behind TLL, a program they use to take organs from poor, desperate people and sell them to the wealthy. The latter also murders children to harvest organs from their deceased bodies. When the former's business dealing with Sten Torensson and his father goes badly, he hires assassins to kill them, blowing up the entire buildings they are in to murder them.
- "The Pyramid": Heinrich Böhle was introduced in a flashback in which he shoots up a elderly man's home and kills one of Wallander's best friends as he escapes. Returning after 25 years, Böhle uses a helicopter to fire upon innocents, and when a drug dealer under Ygnve Holm causes an overdose, Böhle begins targeting Ygnve's acquaintances to save himself from the police. Killing both of Yngve's sisters with a bomb, Böhle goes on to murder Ygnve's right-hand man and kidnap his daughter, trying to blow her up as well.
Henriksson series
- "The Container Lorry": The drug dealer Hosse is contracted to smuggle drugs in a truck filled with immigrants, whom, despite orders to keep alive, he kills all nine of. Later driving another truckload through a checkpoint, Hosse captures undercover agent Karin, bragging to her about his plans to kill the immigrants he is transporting while threatening her to remain silent. Engaging with the police in a firefight when they try to stop him, Hosse fights to the end, murdering Karin before finally being gunned down himself.
- "The Secret": Former police commissioner Rolf "Roffe" Liljeberg is a sadistic pedophile who hides his monstrosity under the guise of a friendly retiree. Seemingly helping the protagonists find the man who killed a young boy, Rolf's true colors are shown in flashbacks in which he heavily abused and molested Stefan, even scarring him. When Stefan confronts him for his past abuses, Rolf laughs at Stefan's threats to kill him, knowing Stefan could never get away with doing so, eventually driving Stefan to suicide. Revealed to be the true killer of the boy, Rolf tries to murder yet another child before finally being stopped.
- "The Leak": Leonard Belker is a thief who uses terrorist attacks to cause dread, then steal in the midst of the horrific distraction, starting the episode with one such attack killing countless people. His henchmen capturing Pontus, Belker sets Pontus's car on fire, trying to painfully burn him to death. Launching yet another terrorist attack, Belker has many more innocents killed while he smugly smiles at his handiwork, uncaring as the police kill off his followers. Stringing along a man named Sven as his mole, Belker blackmails him by threatening to murder his wife if he does not comply and eventually shoots her through the spine before escaping alone.
- "Missing": Serial Rapist and Serial Killer, Victor Nilsson, is an utterly loathsome monster. Using false charm and wealth to build relationships with women, Victor rapes and murders them, keeping their bodies in plastic bags kept in his basement, even doing the same to a little girl. Trying to murder the girl's mother and his own former lover, Wallander deduces Victor's true nature and confronts him in his home, sickened by the sight of dozens of bodies.
Branagh series
- "One Step Behind": Åke/Louise is a psychopathic Serial Killer who begins relationships with people, only to betray and murder them while their guard is down. Formerly having a relationship with Wallander's best friend and colleague Karl "Kalle" Svedberg, Åke is enraged with Karl's embarrassment at dating Åke for being transgender and murders him. Going on to kill a group of girls, any sympathy for Åke's rejection by Karl is smashed with the revelation she had killed long before meeting him. Stalking a newlywed couple to a private island, Åke gleefully murders them and their photographer. Kidnapping Wallander's daughter, Åke attempts to draw out suffering from both of them before finally killing them to satisfy her sadism.
- "The Man Who Smiled": This incarnation of Alfred Hardeberg—Harderberg in this version—is even more monstrous than the original. Using his position as a well-connected philanthropist, Harderberg murders African civilians to greedily sell their organs on the black market. When his defense attorney, Gustav Torestensson gets too close to the truth, Harderberg murders him and his son to avoid detection. Murdering two kind-hearted philanthropists for trying to get him arrested, Harderberg smugly tells Wallander the people he harvests are his "family" and he chooses when they die. When one of his assistants turns on him in horror at Harderberg's operation, he kills him before finally being arrested.
