Increasingly common with 3D printed weapons

Increasingly common with 3D printed weapons

Published: Less than 1 hour ago

full screen The police are seizing more and more 3d-printed plastic weapons. Archive image. Photo: Eric Gay/AP/TT

In recent years, the police have made more and more seizures of plastic weapons that have been assembled after being printed in 3D printers, shows a survey made by the P1 program “In the name of the law”.

– From 2013, we have received a few weapons every year, now we are starting to receive maybe five to six cases a year, says Mikael Högfors at the National Forensic Center (NFC), to the radio.

In the most recent case of this type that has been in court, a man in Trollhättan who manufactured this type of weapon was sentenced to five years in prison for, among other things, weapons offenses and serious drug offences.

According to the European police agency Europol, the rise of 3D printed weapons is a present and future threat. Mikael Högfors is worried about the development.

– If you reduce the smuggling of illegal weapons, the demand will still remain. All the plastic-printed weapons we see today have been made with the intention of being used in criminal contexts, he says.

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