Guardia Civil bust major illegal firearm dealers

OPERATING under the title of VULPES, the Guardia Civil undertook a major investigation into the ownership and sale of illegal firearms across 14 provinces and has now arrested 13 people belonging to a single criminal organisation.

In addition to the arrests, they seized 120 pistols and revolvers, silencers, tasers, 8,000 cartridges, fake police identification and 20 marijuana plants.

A number of the pieces were in theory replica guns but in fact they were convertible to fire bullets in contravention of European regulations.

The headquarters of the organisation was based in Murcia where the weapons were brought in from outside of the country so that they could be sold illegally on the black market. Apart from the weapons, officers also found and dismantled two workshops where replica weapons could be converted to fire.

There is a considerable increase in the trade in this type of illegal weapon for both criminal use and terrorism. Certainly the distribution of such a large number of guns could have had disastrous effects within the country and Spain is a safer place thanks to this action.