© Ho / Brazilian Civil Police / AFP
The cargo included 45 AK-47's, 14 AR15's and one G3 rifle - all high-caliber military grade weapons. The bust is reported to be the biggest of its kind in Brazil for a decade.
A joint operation by Brazilian police and a unit specializing in firearms uncovered the cache following an X-ray of the supposed pool heaters at Rio's airport.
© Ho / Brazilian Civil Police / AFP
© Ho / Brazilian Civil Police / AFP
The four arrests are the result of a two-year operation which Estadao reports began in 2015 when a military police officer was murdered in São Gonçalo, in the Rio metropolitan region. The pistol used to kill the officer was seized and traced to a specialized arms trafficking ring.
© Ho / Brazilian Civil Police / AFP
"While drug trafficking is considered a heinous crime, arms trafficking keeps being punished with the minimum penalty (from four to eight years)," said Sá.Brazil's security forces are struggling to prevent powerful automatic weapons from falling into the hands of drug gangs and militia groups who control many of the slums, known as favelas, in Brazil's major cities.
"Situations like that make me feel like I'm drying ice [wasting my time]," he added.
An AR15 is the civilian version of the military weapon the M16. So an AR15 it's NOT a military weapon. I'd bet the AK47's were actually AKM's, civilian semi auto versions of the military (fully automatic) AK47. Now if these were converted to full auto, then whoever did this would be easy to find because ordering all the parts to make them fully auto would leave a long paper trail, easily tracked to the buyer. Looking at all these guns lined up, they all look the same. Which implies that whoever bought them did so in one batch. If that's the case, tracing whoever bought them should also be easy.