The police announced this Sunday that they dismantled an illegal workshop dedicated to the manufacture of weapons using 3D printers in Tenerife, in the Atlantic archipelago of the Canary Islands, an unprecedented event in Spain.
It would be the “first illegal 3D weapons manufacturing workshop in Spain,” according to the police statement, which reported the arrest of an unidentified person for the alleged crimes of illegal possession of weapons and deposit of explosives.
In the searches in the workshop, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the agents confiscated “two 3D printers, 11 spools of filament for 3D printers and numerous computer devices used to manufacture” the weapons, the text said.
They also found numerous parts of weapons made with 3D printers, manuals on the use of weapons and “chemical substances that can be used in the production of explosive devices”, which required the participation of a police anti-explosive team.
When the operation was carried out, the agents saw one of the printers in full operation, “printing a frame for a short weapon, which was practically finished,” the statement said.
Police dismantled the workshop last September, but the investigating court had so far kept the dossier under summary secrecy.