Weapons and weed: Spanish police bust dope-dealing bomb builders

A TRIO of shady characters have been arrested in Madrid and Avila provinces, primarily for posting detailed instructional videos, detailing how to manufacture homemade explosive devices using a range of products bought online, on the Internet. 

Some of the questionable episodes show the perpetrators detonating devices they had constructed by hand, some of which weigh five kilos and caused serious damage, on public roads and in natural spaces of high ecological value, with no security measures whatsoever taken.

Upon raiding the suspects’ homes, police unearthed stashes of aluminium powder, magnesium powder, barium nitrate, mandolins and soap for fabrication of napalm, empty housing ready to be packed with explosive material, detonator fuses, smoke canisters, ammunition of various calibres, rockets, firecrackers and a series of manuals explaining how to build explosive devices.

The videos had been seen around 200,000 times on YouTube, of which many viewers were reportedly from Colombia and Mexico and interacted with the authors, even making suggestions about how to make more powerful incendiaries, according to the police report.

Officers also found a marihuana plantation which was monitored by camcorder traps at one of the addresses, with two greenhouses containing 78 adult plants weighing approximately 30 kilos and seven kilos of prepared marijuana buds, plus pruning and weighing devices.

Anti-fascist propaganda with a radical left wing, violent theme was also recovered from among the homeowner’s personal effects, with the operation the first in Spain to involve combating the illicit manufacture of explosives using precursors such as internet videos.