Posted on 08/28/2018 3:07:54 PM PDT by EdnaMode
Last week, police officers in Paraguay found that at least 42 battle rifles had been stolen from their armory and replaced with toy replicas. It’s unclear if a flag with the word “BANG!” written on it popped out of the barrels.
ABC Color first reported the discovery last Friday, saying officials were performing an inspection at the headquarters of the Department of Armaments and Munitions of the National Police when they found the toy rifles. More details emerged over the weekend when Paraguay’s Minister of the Interior Juan Ernesto Villamayor addressed the situation calling it, “a very serious criminal act.”
According to NPR, the total number of FN FAL rifles stolen now stands at 44, with an additional 90 small arms that have gone missing. The Brazilian-made rifles were reportedly being held in storage in Capiatá because they were considered obsolete. After authorities noticed “signs of irregularities,” an inspection was carried out and part of the weapons cache had been replaced with what was said to be Airsoft replicas. ABC Color obtained a photo of one of the imposter weapons.
The BBC reports that the inspection was prompted by the appearance of some of the rifles on the black market over a year ago. They reportedly sell for up to $10,000 and the stolen inventory is believed to have been smuggled into Argentina and Brazil. A report from earlier this year found that Paraguay and the U.S. are the two biggest sources of illegal foreign guns in Brazil.
The officer in charge of the facility where the guns were stored first assumed duty in January, and according to ABC Color, he admitted that he did not personally review an inventory list presented to him by subordinates. He has now been relieved of duty.
When assuming command, NEVER sign for property that you haven't personally verified.
L-OLe’!
Last night somebody broke into my apartment and replaced everything with exact duplicates... When I pointed it out to my roommate, he said, ‘Do I know you?’
- Steven Wright
Sleep tight citizens of Paraguay, your military is alert and vigilant!
Imagine if this had happened in the bad old days when Paraguay had a dictator.
I hear you.
When I did this, a couple of people complained. Most backed me up.
First the coffee gets replace with Folger’s instant, and now this!
So true and it probably gave them more time to get further away with the stolen guns before it was noticed they were gone. Actually quite clever in a criminally sadistic kind of way.
I'm thinking inside job. You?
Those orange barrels should have been a dead give-away! Sell them to Venezuela for a barrel of heavy crude each!
Paraguay, wasn’t that where Richard Dreyfus became president..
Ten grand each.
They need to start by investigating whoever it was that declared these “obsolete”
Well my goodness, guess the Bush dynasty is on it’s own, come time to repair to their little hidey hole.
I promise not to shoot my eye out.
They are considered obsolete. An extremely fine rifle that beat the M14 in every test except Arctic conditions. The reason they lost that test was that Springfield Armory was given 2 months to prepare their M14s specifically for that test while FN was not even told of that specific test. There are several dozen examples in the armory at Quantico.
He’s hilarious.
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