He was on a bus heading to France: man arrested with assault rifle, ammo and bulletproof vests

Des armes retrouvées dans les affaires d’un Belge arrêté à Madrid. (illustration) Bro Takes Photos sur Unsplash

A man has been arrested in Spain with weapons, including an assault rifle, in his belongings. The individual was going to the west of France.

A Belgian citizen, suspected of being linked to organized crime, was arrested on Tuesday with an assault rifle and bulletproof vests on a bus in Madrid while’ he was preparing to go to France, indicated Agence France Presse this Wednesday, according to information from the Spanish police.

Weapons and ammunition

This 25-year-old young man, who was the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the Belgian authorities for a case of theft, kidnapping and homicide, was arrested in a bus station in the Spanish capital , indicated the police on the social network X.

Agentes de la Brigada Móvil-Policía en el Transporte detuvieron ayer en la Estación Sur de autobuses de Madrid a un hombre que portaba en una maleta dos armas y munición

Tenía una orden de detención de las autoridades belgas por robo, secuestro y homicidio

Viajaba desde Málaga… pic.twitter.com/cucfQOM3c3

— Policía Nacional (@policia) April 10, 2024

Questioned by AFP, a police source clarified that this case had "nothing to do with terrorism", referring to the trail of < em>"organized crime" and the "drug trafficking".

According to the police, the young man "arrived from Malaga", in the south of Spain, and was preparing to go "to France" by taking another bus. "He had two weapons and ammunition in his suitcase", she wrote on X. According to the police source , one of the weapons was an assault rifle. The fugitive, who also had "bullet-proof vests", apparently wanted "to go to Nantes", in western France, this source said.

According to Cadena Ser radio, he bought his weapons in Marbella, a luxurious seaside town in southern Spain popular with international drug traffickers, and regularly affected by score-settling.