Blocus: ten arrests as Spain braces for Halloween

Blocus is not an organisation with members or spokespeople. It is a brand replicated on TikTok, WhatsApp and Telegram through disposable accounts and posters generated with artificial intelligence. That is the conclusion reached by investigators and by the open-source study cited by El País. Before Halloween night, security forces have detained ten people accused of creating and running the channels that called for shops to be looted and police to be attacked.

What happened

The arrests took place between Wednesday and Friday in Barcelona, Valencia, Tenerife, Bilbao and Málaga. The Guardia Civil detained in Picanya (Valencia) the man it considers the alleged founder and main promoter of Blocus in Spain: a 20-year-old who presented himself on social media as its leader and who, under the handle «fuck aeat», created and ran the first two Telegram groups that the platform closed for inciting violence, according to ABC. That same Friday, the National Police detained an 18-year-old in Alfafar for encouraging people to loot shops in Valencia through «Blocus Vlc» groups; one of them reached 400 users. Earlier, a 17-year-old in Valencia and a 16-year-old in Lleida had been detained, accused of creating and running channels with instructions on making Molotov cocktails and attacking police.

The modus operandi was similar in every case. Recruitment began with TikTok videos and posters carrying QR codes that posed as student demands. From there, interested users moved into WhatsApp and Telegram groups and then into private channels. Organisers asked people to share the links in class groups and other school settings. The chats told participants to wear black clothes and masks, follow specific routes and, in Barcelona, wait for instructions to direct looters in real time towards jewellers, luxury shops and department stores. Some messages proposed setting fire to shops and even Barcelona city hall.

On 24 October, the call-out only took hold in Barcelona. The interior ministry estimates that some 500 people took part, many of them minors. The unrest left about twenty shops looted and 133 arrests, 89 of them minors — far above the 17 minors arrested in the 2021 riots, according to ABC. The Mossos described the events as an «unprecedented phenomenon», with no flag or prior slogan behind them. In Madrid, the same call-out produced no disturbances despite the police deployment. Investigators believe that in Barcelona participants could travel from the city itself and its inner ring, whereas in Madrid they had to come from outlying neighbourhoods.

The investigation has so far ruled out foreign direction and an organised structure. The study cited by El País, based on more than 10,000 items from seven platforms, dates the network's first message to 8 October, with a failed call-out in Madrid. It defines Blocus as «a brand operating with disposable accounts», not an organisation with members and spokespeople. The Mossos have asked the Centre for Intelligence against Terrorism and Organised Crime (CITCO) to close the Telegram channels. Police forces are keeping several channels open to keep monitoring the network.

The map: the digital terrain

The map covers 205 countries and colours each by the share of its population using the internet, with 2024 World Bank data. It does not measure TikTok or Telegram use, the age of users or their willingness to join a riot. It shows the ground on which a digitally born network operates: how many people are connected in each country.

Spain records 95.8%, the same value as Belgium and above Germany (93.5%), Italy (89.2%), France (88.7%) and Portugal (88.5%). The gap with France is 7.1 percentage points. Yet Blocus was born in France, where student protests have reached a much larger scale. High connectivity is not enough to explain why a call-out takes hold in Barcelona and not in Madrid, or why it turns into looting. The map helps situate the potential reach of a digital campaign; it is not a theory of the case.

What comes next

Blocus has call-outs scheduled for 31 October, 2 November and 30 November — the day after the general election — in 12 Spanish cities, according to the study cited by El País. For this Saturday, Madrid is preparing some 200 riot police and the city council has mobilised 1,700 municipal officers across the long weekend. In Barcelona, the operation is at level 4, the highest, and will begin with public transport, with identity checks and searches for dangerous objects. Shops in several cities have protected their windows.

On Friday in Palma, a call-out attributed to Blocus preceded verbal clashes between far-left groups and Núcleo Nacional; police arrested one minor and identified six others. The authorities have also warned about hoaxes concerning supposed police alerts. The Guardia Civil advises families and schools to watch for messages encouraging people to hide their identity, change meeting points or commit violence. The investigation remains open and those detained could face charges of aggravated public disorder and criminal organisation, according to ABC.

The question for the coming hours is not whether Blocus is a movement with an ideology — investigators say it is not — but how far a digital brand without a structure can amplify itself. The map is a reminder that the infrastructure for that amplification is vast; it is also a reminder that infrastructure alone does not decide what happens in the street.