A vast 3D weapons manufacturing network dismantled in France and Belgium
A network manufacturing and selling weapons made with 3D printers was dismantled last week in France and Belgium. Fourteen people were arrested and six imprisoned. A first.
A 3D printed FCG-9 submachine gun in Marseille, February 5, 2024. © NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP
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“
This is a first in France
” which “
does not fail to worry us
,” declared Marseille public prosecutor Nicolas Bessone at a press conference. Led by the “cyber” division of the national gendarmerie, meticulous investigations carried out over a year and notably requiring the infiltration of investigators within Telegram groups, were necessary to achieve this vast raid which occurred at the end of January in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Ile-de-France, Grand-Est, Midi-Pyrénées and Belgium regions.
Three hundred gendarmes, including members of the elite GIGN unit, were mobilized to arrest fourteen people, recover eight 3D printers, seven complete 3D weapons as well as 24 conventional weapons, often undeclared and seized mainly from collectors.
At the head of this network was a 26-year-old man, already convicted of a drug-related offense and now living in Belgium. An international arrest warrant has been issued for him to be handed over to French authorities. In all, six people were placed in pre-trial detention, five others are under judicial supervision, including one kept at home with an electronic bracelet. All are between eighteen and thirty years old and some have criminal records.
“
These individuals are in a real pro-weapons ideology imported from the United States
,” explained Colonel Hervé Petry, head of the national cyber unit, speaking to our correspondent in Marseille,
Siam Spencer
.
Their desire is really to disseminate weapons to as many people as possible in a spirit of fight against a state considered totalitarian and oppressive.
» The network also offered ways to make weapons at home. “
These individuals provide a printer which costs 150 euros and a manufacturing recipe on specific files which apply to the printers
,” continues Colonel Petry.
All
profiles share a radical ideology, whether far right, far left, or radical environmentalist, collector or trafficker.
»
The delivery was made “
by Vinted delivery processes
”, explains the public prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone. These weapons were sold at advantageous prices: around 1,500 euros for a submachine gun almost similar to a conventional weapon. “
It’s illegal, the heaviest penalties are up to 10 years of traditional imprisonment
,” he warns.
(
And with
AFP)
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