In a workshop in Cali they were transforming traumatic weapons into lethal weapons

Uniformed members of the Metropolitan Police of Santiago de Cali, in the midst of the controls being carried out to combat crime in the capital of the Valley, paved the space where a man was found who, allegedly, had been modifying traumatic weapons to turn them into lethal ones. The man was captured in the Morichal neighborhood of Comfandi. The subject, now in the hands of the authorities, already had in his file the alleged commission of a homicide that occurred in November 2021.

In the house where the alleged criminal was held, there was a handcrafted armory with plans, modified weapons, others ready to alter and marijuana. Specifically, a traumatic rifle, three traumatic pistols, a modified traumatic revolver, four thousand grams of loose marijuana and 200 cigarettes of this same substance were seized. The uniformed men also took control of specialized tools for the modification of weapons.

“Likewise, a plan of the area was found, which reflects the way in which suspected criminals create these actions that affect citizen security,” said the police.

What the authority explained is that what man was doing was changing the guns of weapons to modify their resistance to new pressures and suppliers. The idea is to adjust the weapons to fit conventional cartridges. This changes the classification of this weaponry from traumatic to lethal.

“What they do is change the barrel or reinforce the barrel to withstand these pressures, in addition to this they must make a modification to what is the supplier's housing to extend it, since the length of the conventional cartridge or war cartridge is longer than that of the traumatic cartridge (...) The exchange of the barrel and the opening of the supplier's housing could be between 100,000, 150,000 and 200,000 pesos,” explained Mayor Édison Gaitán Barrera, a member of the weapons tracing group of the Dijín forensic ballistics laboratory, in an interview delivered to the Canal Caracol news program, in the year 2021.

The captured, emphasizes the authority, was able to make up to 16 monthly modifications. These new pieces were worth twelve million pesos on the black market. In addition to the manufacture and sale of these artifacts, man was involved in drug trafficking issues. In the house where he was captured, a fridge with bags of marijuana was found.

Now, in the hands of justice, he will have to answer for the charges against him for the crimes of homicide and illegal carrying of firearms. “There should be no normative differentiation between traumatic weapons and lethal weapons. They must be in the same category. The Government must recognize that this is a major national security issue and should not treat it as an administrative problem of registration or regulation. Traumatic weapons should immediately be considered a weapon that should be completely restricted to the use of public forces,” Daniel Rico, director of C-analysis, told the same media outlet.

According to the authorities, during 2022, 520 traumatic weapons and 291 firearms have been seized. By May 2021, the Police announced the seizure of 4,371 traumatic weapons. A modified traumatic gun, according to information from 2021, could cost about $1,000,000. Bogotá, Medellín and Cali, for that year, were classified as the cities with the most alerts for weapons modification. In 2020, authorities reported that 216,082 non-lethal weapons entered the country, mostly from Turkey.

Keep reading: