During the first six months of 2026, incidents in which someone fired a bullet in Catalonia have increased by 45%. That is to say, a shooting has been recorded every two days, with a toll of six dead and seventeen injured. If cases where someone has brandished a firearm, even if they did not get to use it, are added to this, there is one incident a day. And, in these cases, real weapons are becoming increasingly common: they already represent 42% of the total, when until recently the majority were simulated. Behind this increase are various causes, such as the fact that weapons are becoming cheaper, are more available, and there are more criminal groups that need them to defend their businesses, which are closely linked to drugs.

"If you don't help us, we will kill you. Do you know what it is to be a gangster? We will cut off both your hands so they can make you an ear." It is November 15, 2022, and alleged members of the Casuals, the criminal group that was born from the Boixos Nois, held a man in a house after kidnapping him by force and putting him inside a car. He was a friend of a caretaker of a marijuana plantation who owed money to the feared Casuals. They tied him up in a house and threatened him: "Nobody plays with the Boixos Nois," they warned him. Finally, they set him free and this illegal detention was one of the starting pointsof a major judicial case by the Mossos d'Esquadra against the Casuals.Last Saturday afternoon some men dressed as police officers kidnapped another man in the middle of the AP-7, in front of the gaze of many drivers who witnessed how they pulled him out by force, assaulted him, and took him away. Later, they released him a few kilometers away. Apart from coinciding in the method, this latest illegal detention also coincides with that of the Casuals because everything points to it being related to a marijuana plantation that the victim was supposedly guarding and that the police discovered in 2025. On Monday, another man was also kidnapped in Barcelona, beaten up, and released near a gas station in Salt.

The Spanish legislature is in stoppage time. The general elections will be in 2027 –more and more voices are pointing to the first quarter–, so now conversations are intensifying regarding projects that are in the pipeline and will have only one opportunity in these coming months to move forward. One of them, as indicated by various sources consulted by ARA, is a proposal from the Catalan government to toughen the Penal Code for crimes involving the possession of weapons, which is already on the table at Moncloa. Specifically, it is proposed to double prison sentences in the case of carrying prohibited weapons –currently they are 1 to 3 years of deprivation of liberty– and to create a new crime for the exhibition of weapons in public.

Between 1984 and 2024, invariably, the independence movement (or, rather, the sovereignty movement) always held a majority in the Parliament of Catalonia. But the end of the 'Procés' sank the electoral prospects of the parties that had driven it and cleared the way for Salvador Illa to enter the Palau de la Generalitat. The third socialist president also arrived with all the cards to break the curse of one-term presidents and, with practically no opposition, it was expected that he could consolidate his leadership.

The year 2017 changed many things, including the Mossos d'Esquadra police force. From the beginning of the deployment throughout Catalonia in the 90s until the October 1st referendum, the Catalan police only had four heads of the force, the last one being Josep Lluís Trapero. The prosecution of the major of the Mossos for the events of the autumn of 2017 opened a period of instability that has not yet closed – although now it is strictly due to the internal tensions of Catalan politics and the force itself –. Since 2017 there have been nine appointments for head of the Mossos, one per year. "Can you imagine a company with more than 20,000 employees that changes its CEO every year? It wouldn't be sustainable," comments a police source.

"She will do well", "She is a good professional and a very good person", "She is good", "Good choice". It was already past ten o'clock on Tuesday night and it was not yet known that Commissioner Sílvia Catà would be the new head of the Mossos d'Esquadra. Even so, several Mossos commanders were already endorsing her choice in these messages. All the polls were betting on her, the until now head of the Mossos in Girona, or Commissioner Montserrat Estruch, the head of Barcelona. In fact, Estruch even started as the favorite.

Absence of paternal figures, lack of supervision during childhood, school absenteeism, difficulty in emotional management, impulsivity, low commitment to society. These were some of the conclusions of the psychologists who had treated the two minors, aged 15 and 16, arrested last week in Manresa for the fatal stabbing of a 45-year-old man. Both had criminal records and both, as ARA has been able to reconstruct from various sources, have had a troubled childhood and have caused constant conflicts in the centers where they were educated, from which this complex situation had been repeatedly warned about.

The trigger was a trivial matter. The argument started with a comment like "are you looking at me funny" and one of the involved parties left. But he returned with an electric scooter and shot at the group he had argued with. This happened a week ago in the Raval district of Barcelona. Two people ended up arrested and no one was injured. This is one of the cases that shows, according to police sources, that it is being detected how firearms are appearing more and more often in new contexts, situations that are not linked to organized crime or large drug mafias.

The wait has ended and the day of the solar eclipse, special for its total condition, has arrived. This will only be visible in a very narrow strip of the planet, where the demarcations of Castelló and València fall. In Alacant, the phenomenon will only be visible partially.

Barcelona City Council continues with its plan of deployment of video surveillance cameras in points it considers sensitive for the city's security. This Tuesday, the Deputy Mayor for Security, Albert Batlle, announced the installation of these devices in five more areas: El Born (where there will be 9 devices), the Bunkers del Carmel (11), the Olympic Ring (30), Fort Pienc (30), with special emphasis on the Mercat dels Encants, and Parc de la Pegaso (19), where at the beginning of July they killed a teenager. The forecast is that the 99 cameras will be operational before the end of the year.

The mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, announced this Monday that the Guàrdia Urbana will incorporate up to 28 Taser guns into its armament in the coming months. In a video published on his social media, Albiol detailed that the chosen model will be the Taser T-10, a new version, with more cartridges and greater range than the Taser X2 that other local police forces and the Mossos d'Esquadra have been using since 2018, also manufactured by the American company Axon. The budgetary allocation has already passed the municipal plenary session, where the PP has an absolute majority.

Between January and June of this year, Barcelona has been the scene of 74,350 crimes and 17,359 arrests. This is 11.2% fewer crimes and a 6.7% reduction in arrests compared to the same dates last year. Therefore, crimes are generally decreasing and are sinking to the level of a decade ago, but nevertheless, the data from the latest barometer place crime as the second concern for Barcelona residents, only behind housing. This is the main conclusion of the latest Barcelona Security Board, which this morning made public the data on conflict in the Catalan capital.

It was the late 18th century and the English chemist Joseph Priestley made a discovery that revolutionized medicine. Specifically, he thought of a way to feel it less: he discovered a new gas, nitrous oxide, which had analgesic properties and could relieve pain. It was one of the first gases used to anesthetize a patient before surgery. In fact, it is still used in childbirth today. However, without knowing it, Priestley also revolutionized the parties of the time: the elites began to try nitrous oxide and discovered that, besides being a good analgesic, in small quantities it produced a feeling of euphoria. It became a fashion at high society parties. The laughing gas had just been born.

Are neighborhoods safe? Looking at crime data, one can conclude that they are. Or, at least, sufficiently so. However, there is an increase in the perception of insecurity and a feeling of fear when going out at night or walking down certain streets, especially among young women and the elderly. Marta Murrià, head of the urban coexistence and security area at the Institut Metròpoli, states that between 15% and 20% of residents in the Barcelona metropolitan area feel insecure, but, even so, more than 60% of the population does not change their behavior or routes, even if certain places or times may trigger alerts.“The feeling is not only related to the number of crimes or being a victim; there are other factors that explain it,” continues the expert, who gives the example of residents in the neighborhoods along the Besòs strip, who express the most insecurity, despite not always being areas with a high crime rate. Murrià was responding to the debate on security and coexistence in neighborhoods raised by Confavc (Confederation of Neighborhood Associations of Catalonia), during one of the conferences it periodically organizes to gauge the "malaise" of the neighborhoods. “Things are starting to happen in the neighborhood,” summarized one of the attendees to warn that far-right discourses are taking root, fueled by difficulties in paying for housing and an economic and social crisis that ultimately generates coexistence problems. Some of these factors were pointed out by sociologist Murrià, and that Anna Almécija, a criminologist, also related to poor urban planning.Almécija is a member of the Catalan Association for the Prevention of Insecurity through Environmental Design, which analyzes whether the design of spaces facilitates crime. The expert points out that it is more than proven that there are elements that favor "natural surveillance" of the neighborhood. These

Which city would top a ranking of the world's major cities with the fewest homicides? And in what position would Barcelona appear? The fact that nine murders have occurred in six months has generated insecurity – especially for residents living near the scenes of the crimes – and criticism from the opposition, both in the Generalitat and the municipal government. As this newspaper has learned, the same number of crimes have been committed in Barcelona in six months as in the whole of last year, and the vast majority are linked to organized crime – such as the execution on Carrer Balmes – and clan disputes.

He was a white-skinned man, bald, with several tattoos all over his body and dressed in sportswear, with a Barça jersey and bermuda shorts. He was dead, lying on the ground on Balmes street, in front of a police station. He had been shot in the head. The police station cameras showed the whole scene: another white-skinned man, dressed in a beige t-shirt and bermuda shorts, with a helmet in one hand and a pistol in the other, had approached him and shot him in the back. Who was the victim? This is one of the first questions the investigators from the Mossos d'Esquadra asked themselves as they searched for the perpetrator, who left the weapon, the helmet, and a mobile phone at a bus stop in Gal·la Placídia and fled.

When a street shooting occurs, the Mossos d'Esquadra immediately consider whether it could be related to drug trafficking. And, in recent months, whether these drug traffickers could be from Eastern Europe. They do this after several almost identical murders have been attributed to these mafias, and now they are also investigating whether the constant revenge between Eastern clans is behind the latest crime, the one on Balmes street, there are also the constant revenges between Eastern clans.

Six people shot dead in three months. This is the balance of the latest firearm incidents in Catalonia that greatly worries the police. The first was registered at the end of March during a shooting in a music bar in Badalona and the latest took place this Tuesday in the upper part of Barcelona, coinciding with the visit of Pope Leo XIV. The second to last, however, was two days ago, this Sunday in the Zona Franca. On the same street, in fact, there was a new shooting execution fifteen days earlier.

Rarely has Catalonia been so fortified as for the visit of Pope Leo XIV. Police sources speak of an unprecedented and extraordinary operation, which will mobilize more police officers than ever before (up to 7,000) and which bears the name Albus. The Mossos have chosen it because it means white in Latin and white is the color of the pontiff's usual attire, becoming his most recognizable visual symbol.

L'Eixample and Ciutat Vella will be the two districts most affected by the visit of Pope Leo XIV this week in Barcelona. The pontiff will land this Tuesday at El Prat airport and an extraordinary security operation will begin, with up to 7,000 police officers. The Pope's passage will also involve closures that will last for days in some parts of the city and various impacts on transport.