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All weapons trafficked from Izhmash arms maker found

The Izhmash arms making plant gave official comments on the incident

IZHEVSK, January 13 (Itar-Tass) —— The Izhmash arms making plant gave official comments on the incident, when about 80 Kalashnikov submachine guns intended for scrapping were trafficked from the plant.

“The weapons were really trafficked from the plant. This incident occurred on January 12 and already in the afternoon on January 12 thanks to a well-arranged register the numbers of lost firearms were immediately found and were passed timely to the law enforcement agencies for urgent actions. All trafficked weapons were found and brought back to Izhmash,” Izhmash said in an official statement.

The detectives are investigating the reasons for the incident, spokeswoman of the plant Yelena Filatova said.

A local pensioner has found submachine guns in old containers, which he was going to use for heating the stove, a source in Udmurtia’s law enforcement agencies told Itar-Tass on Friday. “On Thursday evening district police officers noticed how a resident of Sovkhozny in the Zavyalovsky district was unloading the containers and decided to examine them. Some 79 Kalashnikov submachine guns, spare parts for them and 253 magazines were found in the search of 64 containers,” the source said.

The detectives found that a driver of a private company trafficked the containers with the submachine guns from the Izhevsk machine building plant. According to the preliminary reports, the weapons were delivered from the arms depots to the Izhmash arms maker for scrapping, the containers were used for the transportation of household waste. “Probably other containers may also contain weapons,” the source said. “We should check, how the weapons were being kept and scrapped and whether or not something was lost,” he noted.

The investigation in the illegal arms trafficking case continues. The law enforcement agencies noted that it is unclear yet whether the driver, who was trafficking the containers with submachine guns, did it deliberately or just accidentally. A criminal case is about to be opened for negligence against Izhmash officials.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin will hold a meeting on firearms at the Izhmash arms making plant on January 24. He has made a statement to this effect in his Twitter blog over the illegal trafficking of 79 Kalashnikov submachine guns intended for scrapping.