One person has been arrested in an operation carried out by the Civil Guard in Barcelona, ??in which a clandestine explosives manufacturing workshop has been dismantled, in which almost 500 kilos of material were seized, one of the largest seizures of this type made in Spain.
The Civil Guard reports in a statement that the detainee, a 41-year-old man, lived in an isolated farmhouse in the municipality of Montmajor, in the Bergadà region of Barcelona, ??where he set up a clandestine laboratory.
In it, the agents seized 468 kilos of explosive precursors, one of the largest seizures of this type of material carried out so far in Spain, as well as chemical products for their preparation, fuse and 2.2 kilos of mixture explosive already finished.
The investigation into this case, called “Termes”, began a year ago when agents from the Information Headquarters of the Civil Guard learned through the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO) of a suspicious transaction of precursors of explosives through an internet trading platform.
The work of the Civil Guard led to a 41-year-old man residing in Montmajor, from where he acquired large quantities of precursors, fuses, electrical equipment and numerous laboratory materials.
The Civil Guard explains that explosives precursors are chemical substances that, from certain concentrations and mixed with each other or with other products, are likely to be used for the homemade and illicit manufacture of explosives.
These characteristics mean that its trade, acquisition, possession and use are rigorously controlled, “to prevent its diversion for illicit, violent or terrorist purposes”, he specifies.
In this sense, the Civil Guard qualifies that, precisely because of the danger of the already finished explosive mixtures, the precursors and the other chemical products found, technical agents in explosive deactivation (TEDAX) participated in the search of the workshop.
In the workshop, the agents found, in addition to the explosive material, laboratory material such as flasks and test tubes of different capacities, an electric heating mantle, magnetic stirrers, vacuum pumps, flow controllers, a still for distillation and an increase in the degree of concentration. of chemical compounds, thermometers and precision scales, as well as a gas mask to protect against dangerous chemical vapors.
The material found allowed the production of gunpowder or triacetone triperoxide, also known as “the mother of Satan”, commonly used by Islamist terrorists, very dangerous and highly destructive.
These operations are one of the most important carried out by the Civil Guard in this area, among which those carried out in 2019 in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos) or in 2021 in Castilleja de la Cuesta (Seville) stand out, where clandestine workshops were dismantled to manufacture of explosive devices and handling of firearms.