Police confiscate 4,500 bladed weapons and 562 firearms in first half of the year

Catalan police seized 4,545 bladed weapons - an average of 25 per day - and 562 firearms in administrative or criminal proceedings during the first half of 2024, according to data from the Department of the Interior.

In both cases, the figure is around half of that seized throughout 2023, when there were 9,180 bladed weapons and 1,171 firearms confiscated.

The vast majority of the bladed weapons seized are knives of different sorts, while almost 60% of the firearms confiscated are long guns.

Interior minister Núria Parlon noted the "increase in incidents" involving bladed weapons while speaking in parliament recently and defended the implementation of the administration's so-called 'Daga Plan' to control their possession and use.

Parlon provided the number of bladed weapons and firearms seized by the Mossos d'Esquadra in 2023 and in the first half of 2024.

“Increase in incidents with edged weapons”

Parlon admited an “increase in incidents with bladed weapons in Catalonia in different types of crime.”

The minister highlighted that the ‘Daga Plan’ is aimed at controlling the possession and use of such weapons by intensifying searches and prevention in risk areas or environments where these incidents occur and by detecting organized gangs.

Almost three in four (73.6%) incidents that ended with a weapon being seized are administrative misdemeanors (14,210), whereas crimes represent 26.7% of reported incidents.

The most common type of crime involving a knife is that of threats, with 1,300 incidents, and coercion, which represent a third of the total.

Another quarter are crimes of injury (this includes domestic abuse, which alone is 7% of all recorded criminal acts) and another quarter are crimes against property.