Enormous amount of arms, ammunition seized from Nazi group in France

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - Investigators in eastern France’s Alsace region on Friday announced the seizure of an enormous quantity of arms, ammunition, and gunpowder from the four suspects belonging to a violent neo-Nazi ultra-right movement.

During a raid in Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin departments on Tuesday, police arrested five men aged between 40 to 60. The prosecutor of Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), Edwige Roux-Morizot, said in a press conference that the raid was fruitful as investigators found an impressive array of weapons of war and several Nazi objects in the houses.

The prosecutor said that these suspects were “on a hunt for Jews during a football match in Strasbourg,” without divulging further details or revealing the identity of the group.

“We found dangerous weapons and an ammunition manufacturing workshop during the house raid,” she said, adding that the crackdown was timely as it took place before any action, according to a report by RTL News.

Investigators found 167 magazines including 72 from Kalashnikovs, 120,000 munitions of all calibers, more than 35 kilograms of gunpowder, three ammunition presses, a large number of magazines for weapons of war, a casing heating machine, a banknote counter, four precision scales, more than €25,000, and two silencers, French daily Le Telegramme reported.

Four men have been indicted for arms trafficking and possession of war weapons and face 10 years imprisonment. Two have been imprisoned and two were left free under judicial supervision, while the fifth person was released without charges, the Telegramme news report said.