Police in the French city of Marseille have dismantled a large network of arms dealers, whose members were selling guns made with 3D printing technology.
The network operated from the Mediterranean to Belgium, and the weapons produced with 3D technology were sold online.
After an investigation that lasted about a year, the French police carried out raids in the southern and eastern parts of France, as well as in Belgium.
Around 300 police officers participated in the operations, resulting in the arrest of 14 individuals.
During these actions, eight 3D printers, seven pieces of weaponry produced with this technology, as well as 24 conventional firearms were seized. Most of the weapons were unregistered and were mainly confiscated from collectors.
The leader of the gang is a twenty-six-year-old man from the Var region in southern France, who has already been prosecuted for drugs. After he fled to Belgium, an international arrest warrant was issued for him to be handed over to the French authorities.
Detention was ordered for a total of six individuals, while five are under judicial supervision. All of them are between 18 and 30 years old.
Some of them are accused of assisting in weapon production, while others are allegedly middlemen and resellers.
Buyers, including collectors and individuals associated with drug trafficking, were also arrested.
To avoid checks, the 3D-printed gun parts were sent one by one to the buyers.
The Prosecution believes that trading in weapons obtained through 3D printing, which is otherwise impossible to trace, is a cause for concern.
The chief prosecutor of Marseille, Nicolas Bessone, told reporters that this was the first seizure of weapons of this type in France.
“This is still prohibited by law, with penalties of up to six years’ imprisonment,” Bessone said, adding that “crime is adapting to new techniques”.
Herve Petry, the newly appointed head of the French gendarmerie’s national cyber unit, told reporters the suspect “shared a libertarian mentality” and was part of a pro-gun movement whose aim was to “distribute weapons to as many people as possible to protect themselves from the state, which they consider to be totalitarian and oppressive”.
