Arms gangs go offline
By Zhang Xuanchen |
December 24, 2010, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
MORE than 500 suspects have been caught manufacturing illegal firearms, gun parts and explosives and selling them online, police in Jiangsu Province said.
Police nabbed 540 suspects, while seizing 590 homemade shotguns, 150,000 bullets, 640,000 gun parts and nearly 940 kilograms of explosives during a crackdown launched in May on the illegal gun trade, Yangtze Evening News reported yesterday.
Police said the suspects were from four different rings and that they tracked online shops registered in the province's Wuxi City.
An alleged mastermind of one ring, Zhou Zhaoping, a jobless gun enthusiast, was said to have opened three online shops in 2008 selling "home accessories," which were actually firearms.
People interested in the illegal weapons could purchase what they wanted provided they knew the code words. In Zhou's shop a "plastic tube" meant a gun barrel, a "bottle" was gun stock while a "plastic cover" was a shell, the newspaper said.
According to the report, Zhou told police he started selling gun parts so people could assemble their own gun from his "Kuangrong Plastic Accessory Maker" shop in May 2008. His suppliers were local machinery factories, which were unaware they were making gun parts.
Zhou's shops apparently sold 57 shotguns and more than 100,000 gun accessories by the time he was caught on June 8. The other three groups were busted in August.
Police nabbed 540 suspects, while seizing 590 homemade shotguns, 150,000 bullets, 640,000 gun parts and nearly 940 kilograms of explosives during a crackdown launched in May on the illegal gun trade, Yangtze Evening News reported yesterday.
Police said the suspects were from four different rings and that they tracked online shops registered in the province's Wuxi City.
An alleged mastermind of one ring, Zhou Zhaoping, a jobless gun enthusiast, was said to have opened three online shops in 2008 selling "home accessories," which were actually firearms.
People interested in the illegal weapons could purchase what they wanted provided they knew the code words. In Zhou's shop a "plastic tube" meant a gun barrel, a "bottle" was gun stock while a "plastic cover" was a shell, the newspaper said.
According to the report, Zhou told police he started selling gun parts so people could assemble their own gun from his "Kuangrong Plastic Accessory Maker" shop in May 2008. His suppliers were local machinery factories, which were unaware they were making gun parts.
Zhou's shops apparently sold 57 shotguns and more than 100,000 gun accessories by the time he was caught on June 8. The other three groups were busted in August.
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