International cooperation: Police arrest Slovak arms dealers in Hungary and Slovakia

Police in Hungary and Slovakia have arrested Slovak arms dealers who sent weapons to Sweden, Spain, and South Africa, Hungarian law enforcement said on Tuesday, describing the final phase of a multiyear operation.

The case dates back to discoveries investigators made between 2014 and 2016, when almost 600 decommissioned or small-caliber weapons registered in the name of four Slovak men were uncovered and an international operation was mounted to capture them.

Then in July last year Hungarian, Slovak and Austrian police raided a warehouse in Rajka, in north-western Hungary, seizing firearms, ammunition, silencers and explosives, according to a statement on police.hu.

Also, various weapons were found in the house belonging to Dusan S, a Slovakian man resident in Rajka, the crime gang’s suspected chief. He and his wife had a Slovakian weapons licence for several weapons, but not a European or Hungarian one. In addition, 19 unlicenced and illegally converted weapons were found in his home, the statement said.

Slovak arms dealers arrested

In January last year Hungarian and Slovak prosecutors set up a joint investigative team under the aegis of Eurojust and with the cooperation of Europol.

Several arrests were made, and the Győr unit of the Hungarian investigation bureau (KR NNI) continued to pursue its weapons-related investigation based on information gleaned from the detainees. The KR NNI detectives managed to discover that weapons from the cache of around 600 reached Sweden, Spain and South Africa, and all of them were linked to crimes, the statement said.

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