More Glock 19s for Portuguese Police
Portugal’s Secretaria Geral da Administração Interna (or Ministry of Internal Administration) have ordered over 1,000 new Glock pistols for various police and law enforcement agencies. The contract is worth just short of 500,000 Euros and will see new 9x19mm Gen 5 Glock 19s issued.
The procurement contract will see new the Ministry of Internal Administration purchase Glock 19s for the Polícia de Segurança Pública (the Public Security Police or PSP) and the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (the SEF, or Foreigners and Borders Service). According to the contract award announcement posted on the EU’s ‘tenders electronically daily’ site the contract for the new duty pistols is worth 476,330 Euros or $545,600.
The Public Security Police or PSP transitioned to the Glock back in early 2000s ordering over 40,000 Glock 19s with external push button safeties but these specially ordered guns soon ran into problems which were rectified by Glock reportedly replacing them with standard no-manual-safety Glock 19 frames. This latest order will see 900 Gen 5 Glock 19s shipped to the PSP.
A second contract has been signed to provide a further 250 Glock 19 pistols to the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras. The combined order for 1150 Glock 19s will be handled by Glock’s Portuguese representatives – Sodarca Defense & Security. Sodarca were established in the 1990s and have been a successful defence and law enforcement contractor with the Portuguese government for over twenty years. The contract was finalised on the 14th September and announced at the beginning of October.
The procurement comes as the controversy surrounding the theft of nearly 60 police weapons continues to rock the Ministry of Internal Administration. As many as 57 police duty pistols, reportedly Glocks, are believed to have been stolen and sold on the black market in 2017. Two officers were suspended in February 2017 over the missing pistols but last month the Portugal’s parliament made calls for answers after just six of the 57 pistols were located.
Managing Editor: TheFirearmBlog.com & Overt Defense.com. Matt is a British historian specialising in small arms development and military history. He has written several books and for a variety of publications in both the US and UK. Matt is also runs The Armourer's Bench, a video series on historically significant small arms. Here on TFB he covers product and current military small arms news. Reach Matt at: matt@thefirearmblog.com
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Glocks arent the only pistols used by the psp...... they also use the p99as, hk p30, beretta px4 & 92fs and sig sp2022.....basically a hodgepodge of stuff alot like mexico does.
So their finally dumping their old nickle plated sissy pistols and buying more Glocks.