Tabernacle Ortega
Madrid (EFE).- A few days ago the City Council of Lantejuela (Seville) suffered a robbery, that of all the pistols of its Local Police. It is not the first time that weapons have been stolen from police stations and even drugs seized from criminals. Where do the thieves sneak in?
Both the police unions and the professional associations of the Civil Guard demand more security in their facilities, or what is the same, more safe agents and gunsmiths to replace the “flimsy” lockers in which in many cases they have to leave their pistols.
The most recent police robberies
Two Walther P99 pistols, three Ceska Brno 75 model and all the ammunition they found was the booty seized on the 10th by the thieves who, without further ado, entered through the main door of the Lantejuela Town Hall around five in the morning and They entered the armory.
That same day it was learned that a court in Ayamonte was investigating the theft, in January of last year, of a shipment of 2,000 kilos of hashish that were found in the Civil Guard facilities of that town in Huelva in two vans seized in Your day.
And one of the most recent had a lot of media coverage because of the place where it happened a little less than a year ago. A minor sneaked into the National Police headquarters in Canillas (Madrid), a large complex where many of the police’s general police stations are located and where the young man stole two pistols, which he exhibited hours later firing into the air through the streets of Vallecas.
The boy jumped a wall of the complex, wandered through it with clear signs of being drugged and neither the alarms of the compound nor the security agents noticed his suspicious presence.
At night in unattended facilities
At night and knowing that there is no surveillance. This is how the theft of 13 pistols and ammunition from the Local Police of Corrales de Buelna (Cantabria) occurred in October 2021. It was not known at what specific time, but everything indicated that between ten at night and six in the morning, because in that section there was no night shift.
So the thieves broke down the access door and ripped out the gun racks. Surveillance cameras could not capture it, because there was none.
A few months earlier, the tenants of the Villafranca de los Caballeros (Toledo) barracks were also unaware of the entry of two individuals who broke into the lockers and seized three pistols, as well as several uniforms and a safe.
They took advantage of the closing hours of the police facility to enter. In any case, it was of little use to them, because a few hours later they were arrested.
As it was only open from Monday to Friday and until 2:00 p.m., as denounced at the time by the civil guard associations, the robbers chose the weekend to steal weapons and ammunition from the Láchar armed institute barracks (Granada), in February 2019.
When the thief is a policeman
In EFE’s review of news of robberies of this nature, the agents themselves also appear as perpetrators of some crimes of this type. As was discovered after the theft of weapons in 2015 at the Ourense National Police station.
The operation that uncovered that authorship went beyond this fact, because there was drug trafficking and informers involved. In any case, it was two officers who had been serving for a long time in the city who carried out the robbery.
The Armed Forces are also robbed
The Armed Forces have not been spared from the robberies either. In 2011, the Menacho military base in Bótoa (Badajoz) suffered a high-profile robbery. The criminals, apparently very organized, took a sweet loot: twenty HK G36 rifles and ten 9-millimeter pistols.
More than a year later, eleven people were arrested in connection with this robbery. And four soldiers who were on duty the night of the crime were punished with disciplinary arrest for negligence.
The assailants forced the perimeter fence, disabled the security cameras, took an Army car and went to the gunsmith.
It was not weapons, but cable that in 2012 three young people stole up to six times from the Legion headquarters in Melilla. They were detained by the National Police.
The agents think
Although they don’t happen often, there is a trickle of thefts that worry unions and associations.
The Jupol union emphasizes the need to increase the number of police personnel in charge of the security and surveillance of the facilities, and calls for gunsmiths “where agents can deposit their weapons in a more secure way and thus avoid these, fortunately, few incidents ”, as he emphasizes to EFE.
The Unified Police Union (SUP) has also repeatedly requested the need to provide gunsmiths and cold areas to all police units in Spain. It seems that the General Directorate has picked up the gauntlet, but “we are waiting for them to urgently comply with the measure,” the SUP tells EFE.
From the Civil Guard associations, Jucil stresses that there is a “deficit of 17,000 agents” in the body, which affects not only the operation of the body, but also the facilities, which “do not have basic security guarantees”. .
Meanwhile, the AUGC demands greater security measures in the posts, such as video surveillance cameras, bars, etc…, “especially in those with little staff, in small towns, which are only open a few days a week, or in the morning , and that during part of the week they remain empty”.