14 June 2004 11:53
Police net illegal arms producers in two Russian cities
[Presenter] Police from St Petersburg and Kazan have carried out a successful operation. They are working together to
fight underground production and sales of weapons. About 10 members of a criminal gang were detained during simultaneous
operations in St Petersburg and Kazan. They used the pistols and automatic weapons they produced themselves to carry out
robberies and blackmail.
[Unidentified man] Serega [diminutive of Sergey], open the door. [Door opens and armed police rush in]
[Correspondent Aleksey Barkhatov] This is not a drill. It is a real arrest. The cupboard contains a kind of kit for a
modern con man. An automatic weapon and rounds for it were wrapped up in a child's jump suit. This is how an
operation in St Petersburg to catch a gang trading in weapons began.
The criminals were not averse to anything in their search for a money-making opportunity. The gang committed around
10 cases of blackmail and robbery. They were tipped off by a doctor who gave his partners in crime the addresses of his
well-off colleagues and antique lovers.
One more arrest. A neighbour asks for a cigarette, the door opens and the operative group receives the command to
storm the flat. Another interesting find is made in a cupboard: a working carbine produced in 1910. This is not the
whole arsenal, though.
The operative group travels out to an underground factory and receives a new signal near the entrance. Two members of
the gang are in the car in front. Two more military pistols were found in a search of the car. In one day seven members
of the gang have been arrested and a search of the factory uncovered four gas pistols that had already been converted,
bullets and special equipment for repairing and producing firearms.
Simultaneously, another operation was conducted in Kazan. Under the guise of arms purchasers, Tatarstan police
uncovered a group of underground arms dealers in the Republic of Mari El. Police discovered that the gang was headed by
a 29-year-old machine operator from the Volga pulp-and-paper plant who goes by the nickname of Mechanic. He assembled
weapons - a unique sub-machine-gun - at his work place and according to his own designs. He was arrested during the mock
purchase along with a group of middlemen.
The criminals brought all their ready goods along to the sale: six sub-machine-guns and two gas pistols that had been
converted to fire live rounds. The police said that these were the best quality home-made weapons they had encountered
so far.
[C/r 0420-0635; video shows police raiding flat, men being arrested, weapons seized]
[Channel One TV] |
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