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Trends in Security Information
The HSD Trendmonitor is designed to provide access to relevant content on various subjects in the safety and security domain, to identify relevant developments and to connect knowledge and organisations. The safety and security domain encompasses a vast number of subjects. Four relevant taxonomies (type of threat or opportunity, victim, source of threat and domain of application) have been constructed in order to visualize all of these subjects. The taxonomies and related category descriptions have been carefully composed according to other taxonomies, European and international standards and our own expertise.
In order to identify safety and security related trends, relevant reports and HSD news articles are continuously scanned, analysed and classified by hand according to the four taxonomies. This results in a wide array of observations, which we call ‘Trend Snippets’. Multiple Trend Snippets combined can provide insights into safety and security trends. The size of the circles shows the relative weight of the topic, the filters can be used to further select the most relevant content for you. If you have an addition, question or remark, drop us a line at info@securitydelta.nl.
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Trade in illegal firearms and explosives
typically either diverted from legal supply chains, converted, reactivated or modified within the EU or originate from weapon stocks outside the EU.
THE TRADE IN ILLEGAL FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES The trade in illegal firearms is a key enabler for other criminal activities such as drug trafficking and amplifies the threat they pose to the internal security of the EU. Violent acts carried out using illegal firearms and public shooting incidents generate a sense of insecurity and severely undermine public confidence in national authorities. Some indicators allow us to assess the overall availability of illegal firearms in the EU. These include the number of shooting incidents and the quantity of seized firearms, both of which suggest the wide availability and accessibility of illegal firearms in the EU. The smuggling of large weapons caches to the EU is rare. Illegal firearms available in the EU are typically either diverted from legal supply chains, converted, reactivated or modified within the EU or originate from weapon stocks outside the EU. In recent years, alarm and signal weapons have become extremely popular among criminals and feature in considerable figures in firearms trafficking and seizure cases. This is due to the fact that they can be easily converted into lethal weapons and are cheaper to procure. Firearms are illicitly manufactured in the EU using clandestine workshops and gunsmiths. Firearms can be assembled from parts which are manufactured using 3D technology, acquired in countries where their sale is allowed and illegally transported to the EU, or illegally produced and used with genuine weapon frames. The reactivation of deactivated and acoustic expansion weapons is a common source of firearms in the EU.
The diversion of firearms from legal supply is another significant source of illegal firearms in the EU. This includes the illegal sale of historical weapons and army surplus material. Firearms are also acquired by targeted thefts from hunters, collectors and sport shooters. Illegal firearms and their parts have been traded online via the surface and dark web and distributed using post and parcel services for some time. The online sale of illegal firearms appears to have shifted away from dark web marketplaces to forums and other platforms after a number of marketplaces banned the sale of firearms. However, the scale of the online trade in illegal firearms has been assessed as limited compared to their offline supply. In addition, many offers for illegal firearms online are believed to be scams. Various types of criminal networks are involved in the trade of illegal firearms in the EU. This includes EU-based and non-EU-based criminal networks. Criminal networks involved in the firearms trade typically feature the division of labour between members. Some members, such as gunsmiths, are highly specialised. Firearms trafficking is often a subsidiary activity to drug trafficking. Drugs are sometimes used as currency to make partial payments for weapons.