ROME—When police raided a warehouse in Andalusia, Spain, last week, they found more than the illicit gun running enterprise they knew they'd cracked. They also found a Third Reich shrine, complete with male and female mannequins dressed up in pristine Nazi uniforms, portraits of Adolf Hitler on the walls, and rare emblems and medals from the Nazi era.
Police arrested a British man and two Germans on the site who were modifying weapons bought in eastern Europe for resale, including scraping off serial numbers and amping up automatic capabilities with the aim of selling them to drug traffickers across Europe, according to the Spanish Civil Guard. The three men were also charged with drug trafficking and falsifying documents.
In addition to the cache of 160 firearms—including 22 AK-47 assault rifles, eight submachine guns, 121 short weapons including pistols, eight silencers, 10,000 bullets, and a grenade with 1.5 kilograms of explosives—they also found doctored gun licenses and other falsified documents, according to a statement by Spain’s Civil Guard. Some of the weapons were already packed up in hermetically sealed bags to be delivered.
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Spanish police made the discovery after a year-long investigation into a spate of drug-related gun crimes known as rollovers where drug traffickers had been stealing each other's drug inventories on the Costa del Sol and Gibraltar, often resulting in paybacks and gang warfare.
During arrest after arrest, investigators found that the weapons being used were all altered in a similar way and with the same tools. They were able to trace some of the weapons back to eastern European countries where caches of such high powered weapons are commonly sold on the black market.
Police raided three storage facilities last week, but only one contained the peculiar Nazi shrine, which Spanish police say contains one of the largest collections of Nazi memorabilia outside a museum. In many European countries, including Spain, Germany, and Italy, it is illegal to display Nazi or fascist memorabilia but legal to trade and sell items.
The trove discovered in Spain is believed to belong to a German man with strong far-right ties who was in charge of the delivery of the doctored weapons. Investigators are not sure the origin of the Nazi artifacts, which include never-before-worn military uniforms and medals without inscriptions. Police also found Nazi paraphernalia on a ship docked in Spain he apparently owned.
The second German man was living in Malaga under a false name after fleeing Hannover, Germany, on an arrest warrant for arms smuggling. His home in Germany also contained some Nazi items, according to the German police, who say his wife is serving time for the illegal storage of the stolen weapons.
The British national, who, like the others, has not been named due to privacy regulations in Spain, is thought to have been a middleman in the sale of the black-market arms to drug smugglers. He is also charged with peddling fake documents including European passports to British nationals who wish to skirt Brexit rules. Spanish police say he hid weapons in double-bottomed luxury vehicles including sports cars. In the home where he was staying, police found a customized pistol and more than 1,200 magazines ready for use or sale.
Spanish police say they have arrested 422 people in similar weapons and drugs networks in the last five years, seized 4,737 firearms, 581,281 bullets and 185 kilograms of explosives, in addition to €700,000 in cash.
The men are expected to be arraigned in Spain in mid-January.
