The Mossos, worried about the access to firearms of youth gangs

BarcelonaThe crime scene is the Parc de les Planes, in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. On March 28, two groups argued and the confrontation ended in gunfire, with a 28-year-old man dead and another young man wounded. In another case, the crime scene is once again a park, the Pegaso park in Barcelona. On July 4 a 15-year-old boy who was with his little brother at this point in the Sant Andreu district was shot to death. What these two incidents have in common is that all the detainees –three youths in the first case and also three youths in the second– were linked to youth gangs.

These are not the same gangs nor are they conflicts related to each other, but both events are part of the same phenomenon: the resurgence, after years of relative inactivity, of some violent groups formed by young boys spread across some points of the territory, especially in Barcelona and L'Hospitalet, but also in municipalities in the Vallès and, even, in places like Cubelles, according to sources consulted by ARA. The Mossos have been preparing a plan to deal with it for some time and it will not be long before they present it publicly, although there are regions like Barcelona where the Catalan police have had their own in place for months. In recent months there have been several incidents that are worrying.

Police sources insist that the current situation cannot be compared with that of the 2000s, when there was great media and police concern over the rise of Latin gangs such as the Trinitarios or the Ñetas. The current gangs are smaller, more heterogeneous, and there are not as frequent clashes as there were then. However, there are sources consulted by ARA that warn that the main police concern is that these structures are becoming increasingly solid, even controlling some neighborhoods, and that they are becoming a pole of attraction for vulnerable youths, coming from broken families or those who have just arrived. For the moment, this extreme has not been reached, but there are more concerns. One is the access these youths have to firearms.

The shootings

Police sources who already fought against Latin gangs at the beginning of the century recall that it was much more difficult to obtain weapons back then. Members of these gangs did not usually carry them habitually. Now, incidents like those in L'Hospitalet or La Pegaso are especially worrying because, in the face of international organized crime that is increasingly arming itself, with nearby wars that facilitate access to handguns, it is seen that this mimicry is also reaching youth gangs. In fact, in the search of the home of a detainee for the L'Hospitalet crime, they found a firearm with ammunition.

This phenomenon is part of a context that does not help: during the first six months of 2026, incidents in which someone has fired a bullet in Catalonia have increased by 45%; a shooting has been recorded every two days, with a toll of six deaths and seventeen wounded. If we add to this the cases in which someone has exhibited a firearm, even if they did not get to use it, there is one incident per day.

Avoid fights

In the specific case of youth gangs, for now, incidents between them are not being recorded on a regular basis. That is to say, serious fights between rival groups for control of territory. In the case of L'Hospitalet, for example, the perpetrators were part of the Trinitarios, but the victim did not belong to any gang. The same applies to a homicide recorded last week in Nou Barris: a group linked to a Mara beat a 55-year-old man to death who, again, does not appear to have been part of any gang.

According to police sources, however, investigative efforts have detected that some groups have been arranging to fight through social media. In fact, the Mossos believe they prevented a fight of this nature in the Bellvitge area a few months ago. And this is also one of the differences compared to the 2000s: the gangs have Instagram accounts and other social networks where they showcase their aesthetic –sometimes even weapons–, often linking it to urban music. In Barcelona, with the police's specific plan, action is also taken in those spaces that these groups frequent the most, as is the case with Parc de la Pegaso.

Without international contacts

At the same time, however, nothing suggests that the current groups are branches of large Latin gangs as was the case in the 2000s. The Mossos currently rule out that these gangs have large-scale international contacts. It is a more local phenomenon, which they still describe as embryonic, but with a risk of it expanding in some areas. They also do not consider these groups to be organized criminal groups that commit crimes by stealing or selling drugs to finance themselves, as has happened in the past. At the same time, without being fully organized, some members of these gangs do carry out robberies on an individual basis.

Meanwhile, the Mossos continue to finalize the plan to deal with it, with specific devices also in some cities such as l'Hospitalet and Barcelona.