During one of my interviews this year with the British Ambassador, Hugh Elliott, the topic of crime and guns came up.
He said that security is one of those areas where the Embassy has excellent cooperation with Spain, even counting on a team from the National Crime Agency, which works as part of the embassy team.
One of the challenges in the UK is that of firearms, some of which may have come from Spain, where it is legal to have a firearm for use with blanks, for example. There was a business exporting these to the UK where they were then converted into lethal weapons. They managed to clamp down on these illegal exports thanks to the close cooperation with the Spanish authorities.
Getting things done requires excellent relationships with the Spanish authorities, the police, the Spanish Guardia Civil etc. One of the Embassy’s key roles is to make sure the relationships are really, really good so that when it comes to trying to get educational agreements in place or guns off the streets in the UK, they get that collaboration they need.
The Ambassador also brought up the fact that not all of the 18 million British visitors to Spain are upstanding citizens and they have also been collaborating with the Spanish police in a campaign, “the Most Wanted” to try to seek the help of the British and Spanish communities to track down fugitives and bring them to justice. This has been an extremely successful campaign, thanks also to the international community.
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