Old article -- Mobile phone guns seized
FROM DAVID LISTER IN BRUSSELS
HANDGUNS made to look like mobile phones and activated by
tapping a button on the keypad are among a stockpile of deadly
gadgets seized by police after being smuggled into The
Netherlands from Yugoslavia.
The special Arrow unit of the Dutch police disclosed yesterday
that it had seized eight of the “shooting phones” in raids on five
Amsterdam addresses during the past three weeks. It also found
29 guns disguised as key rings.
Cees Rameau, a spokesman for the Amsterdam police, said that
each of the mobile phones, clearly intended to be used at close
range, contained four .22 calibre bullets. “For each shot, you have
to press one of the numbers on the keypad. If you didn’t know
they were guns, you wouldn’t suspect anything,” he said.
Although police confirmed that most of the weapons had come
from Yugoslavia, they did not know for whom they were intended.
Mr Rameau said that five men and one woman had been arrested,
including two from Yugoslavia, one from Croatia and one from
Turkey.
At one address in west Amsterdam, police seized 28 key-ring
guns, 26lb of explosives, a machinegun, a pistol, a revolver, 2,000
bullets and 20 hand grenades.
Police also discovered 19lb of heroin, a stash of fake Dutch
banknotes and blank identification papers.
thetimes.co.uk |
