Firearms Offences and Criminal Organisation Lawyer Spain
If you need a firearms lawyer Spain because you are accused of possessing a weapon without a licence and, on top of that, of belonging to a criminal organisation or criminal group, this page is for you. The combination is common and particularly dangerous, because the weapon is not only a separate offence in itself but also increases the sentence for the group. Below we explain exactly what Spanish law punishes, how the two figures are distinguished, and where the defence genuinely has room to work.
Why these two charges arrive together
When a weapon turns up during a search, prosecutors rarely stop there.
The weapon performs two functions in these cases. On one hand it creates a standalone offence that is added to whatever else is being investigated. On the other, the Code expressly increases the penalties for criminal organisations and criminal groups where they have weapons or dangerous instruments available.
A single object can therefore raise the sentence through two separate routes. The defence must attack both from the outset and never treat the weapon as a side issue next to the main charge.
What counts as unlawful possession of a firearm in Spain?
This is not one offence but several, with markedly different penalties depending on the type of weapon and the licensing position of the holder.
Possession of prohibited weapons, and of weapons resulting from a substantial modification of the manufacturing characteristics of regulated firearms, carries one to three years in prison.
Possession of regulated firearms without the necessary licences or permits carries one to two years for handguns and six months to one year for long guns.
Note that distinction. A prohibited weapon is not the same as a perfectly legal weapon whose holder has no valid licence. These are different offences with different penalties, and police reports routinely conflate them.
When is the sentence increased?
Those penalties rise to two to three years for handguns and one to two years for long guns where any of three circumstances applies.
Where the weapons carry no manufacturer’s marks or serial numbers, or these have been altered or erased. Where they were illegally introduced into Spanish territory. Or where they have been converted, modifying their original characteristics.
Each of these requires specific proof and none is presumed. An erased serial number must be established by expert evidence. Illegal importation requires more than the weapon simply being of foreign origin. And conversion needs a report identifying what was modified and when. These are points where the defence frequently finds traction.
The reduction for absence of unlawful intent
There is a provision many people are unaware of, and in practice it is often decisive.
Courts may reduce the above penalties by one degree where the circumstances of the offence and of the offender show an absence of any intention to use the weapons for unlawful purposes.
This is the natural route in cases of an expired licence, an inherited weapon that was never regularised, collector’s pieces, or firearms kept at home and never used. Establishing the context, the absence of usable ammunition, the state of preservation or the existence of earlier licences is exactly the work that determines whether the reduction applies.
How many weapons make an arms cache?
Five. The figure is set out in the Code and worth knowing, because it changes the picture entirely.
Manufacturing, trading in, or gathering five or more regulated firearms constitutes an arms cache, even where they are held in disassembled parts.
The penalties are two to four years for promoters and organisers, and six months to two years for those who assisted in its formation.
Where military weapons are involved the range escalates sharply, to five to ten years for promoters and organisers and three to five years for those who assisted. There the concept of a cache requires no minimum number at all, since manufacturing, trading in or possessing any such weapon suffices, whatever its model or class and even in disassembled parts.
As to ammunition, it is for the courts to declare, having regard to quantity and type, whether it constitutes a cache. No statutory figure exists, which opens up room for argument worth using.
Imitation, deactivated and blank-firing weapons
Many cases are decided here, and usually in the defence’s favour when the work is done properly.
The offence requires a weapon in the proper sense. An imitation, a replica, a firearm deactivated in accordance with the regulations, or an object incapable of discharging a shot do not meet the requirements of the offence.
The question is always one of expert evidence. You must demand a report establishing whether the weapon was capable of firing at the moment of seizure, whether any deactivation complied with the regulations, and whether a blank-firing weapon had been converted. Without that report, the charge rests on the appearance of the object, and appearance is not enough.
What is a criminal organisation?
The Code defines it precisely, and that definition is where the case is fought.
A criminal organisation is a grouping of more than two persons, of a stable character or for an indefinite period, who in a concerted and coordinated manner distribute various tasks or functions among themselves for the purpose of committing offences.
Those who promote, establish, organise, coordinate or direct one face four to eight years in prison where its purpose is to commit serious offences, and three to six years in other cases.
Those who actively participate in it, form part of it, or cooperate with it financially or in any other way face two to five years where the purpose is to commit serious offences, and one to three years in other cases.
And what is a criminal group?
It is the lesser sibling figure, and the distinction between the two is worth years of imprisonment.
A criminal group is the union of more than two persons which, without meeting one or more of the characteristics of a criminal organisation, has as its aim or object the concerted commission of offences.
The group is therefore defined negatively. It lacks something the organisation has, usually stability, a vocation of permanence, or a structured distribution of roles.
Those who establish, finance or belong to one face two to four years where the aim is to commit one or more serious offences against life, physical integrity, liberty, sexual freedom or involving human trafficking, and one to three years for less serious offences. For any other serious offence the penalty is six months to two years. For less serious offences or the repeated commission of minor offences, three months to one year.
Organisation, group, or simply joint offending
This is the central argument in most of these cases and the one that determines the outcome.
Three people who commit several offences together do not automatically constitute a criminal group. Joint offending exists as a category, meaning several perpetrators simply acting together, and it creates no additional offence.
Case law requires a criminal group to display a degree of stability, albeit less than that demanded of an organisation, together with a prior concert extending beyond the individual act. The organisation additionally requires a defined structure, a distribution of functions, a directing body and a vocation of permanence.
The defence therefore works on three levels. Deny the organisation and reduce it to a group. Deny the group and reduce it to joint offending. And in every case challenge the client’s specific position within the structure, because the gap between directing and merely assisting can amount to several years.
When the group has weapons
This is where the two offences intersect and where the sentencing range escalates.
For both criminal organisations and criminal groups, penalties are imposed in their upper half where the entity is made up of a large number of persons, where it has weapons or dangerous instruments available, or where it has advanced communication or transport technology whose characteristics make it particularly suited to facilitating the commission of offences or the impunity of those responsible.
Where two or more of those circumstances apply, the next sentencing tier up is imposed.
Note the cumulative effect. A numerous group that also holds a weapon and uses encrypted messaging accumulates three circumstances and jumps straight to the higher tier. Challenging each of them separately is essential, and in particular the question of whether the weapon was genuinely at the group’s disposal or held by one member in a purely personal capacity.
The increase based on the nature of the offences
Criminal organisations carry a second route to an increased sentence.
Penalties are imposed in their upper half where the offences are against life or physical integrity, liberty, sexual freedom and indemnity, or involve human trafficking.
It is always worth checking whether this increase is being applied alongside another that already took the same element into account. Double counting of a single element is not permissible, and that check is frequently overlooked in indictments.
Where the defence attacks
These cases are rarely won on a single line of argument. Usually several run in parallel.
On the weapon, the expert report on firing capability, the regulatory classification, the licensing position and actual possession all require examination. The offence requires genuine control, and the weapon turning up in shared premises is not enough.
On the search, the judicial warrant, its reasoning, the presence of the court clerk where required, and the chain of custody of the seized item must all be reviewed.
On the organisation, the argument turns on stability, distribution of roles and vocation of permanence, elements the prosecution routinely asserts without evidencing.
On the client personally, the objective is to isolate his actual contribution and separate it from the general narrative about the group. The distance between directing and occasionally assisting is enormous, and police reports invariably blur it.
What to do and what never to do
Do not give a statement before speaking to your lawyer in private. In these cases the first version shapes everything that follows.
Gather all documentation relating to the weapon. Previous licences, ownership certificates, purchase invoices, inheritance documents, deactivation certificates. A document establishing the lawful history of the object can change the charge itself.
Do not move or alter anything. Relocating a weapon after learning of an investigation worsens your position immediately.
And do not adopt the group’s version of events. Where several people are under investigation, each answers for his own conduct, and accepting the collective narrative out of loyalty is the mistake that produces the most convictions.
Firearms lawyer in Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Alicante
Fechenbach Abogados is a criminal defence firm with offices in Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Alicante. We act throughout Spain.
We work regularly in cases involving membership of criminal organisations and groups, unlawful possession of firearms and arms caches, drug offences and cross-border organised crime, as well as extradition and European Arrest Warrant proceedings.
We deal with you directly in English, with no intermediary. We also work in Spanish, German and Polish.
Speak to a firearms lawyer in Spain
Have you been arrested or summoned over unlawful possession of a firearm or membership of a criminal organisation or group? Get in touch.
We will tell you clearly what charge is on the table, what sentence is genuinely in play and what needs to be done now. In English, without evasion and in complete confidence.
