European police operation nets 664 illegal firearms

ACTING as part of a pan-European investigation, with assistance from Europol, the Guardia Civil from its involvement in Operation Bosphorus has announced that it arrested 46 people, seized 247 firearms and more than 23,000 cartridges.

The operation which included police forces from Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom netted a total of 225 arrested and 664 firearms, 33,748 cartridges of different calibres, hand grenades and silencers.

In Spain, four illicit factories were also closed down together with two illegal internet gun shops with arrests taking place in A Coruña, Albacete, Alicante, Almeria, Badajoz ,Barcelona, Bizkaia, Cordoba, Granada, Huelva, Huesca, Jaen, Madrid, Malaga, Murcia, Seville, Tarragona, and Zaragoza provinces.

Many of the weapons had been obtained from Eastern Europe with a number supposedly made inoperable but the various well equipped firearms workshops were able to convert them back to working models and they also manufactured cartridges at the same sites.

All of those taking part were pleased with the results and the fact that so many working weapons were made unavailable to criminals and terrorist organisations.