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Seven arrested in UK’s largest gun smuggling seizure (17 August 2015)

Date: 17/08/2015
Duncan Lewis, Crime Solicitors, Seven arrested in UK’s largest gun smuggling seizure

Police have arrested seven people in the UK’s largest ever seizure of gun smuggled into Britain.

The firearms were smuggled in from France on board a motor cruiser.

The Independentreports that the MV Albernina was tracked as it sailed from France on the return leg from a mooring on the River Medway in north Kent,

The weapons were unloaded from the boat and police discovered them in holdalls and a suitcase inside a van as it left the area.

Medway Magistrates’ Court heard that the guns were allegedly due to be hidden until they were sold on. Officers seized 22 Czech-made assault rifles and Skorpion machine pistols, as well as silencers and 1,000 live rounds of ammunition.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said that three men and a woman were arrested close to the landing site on the Medway, the day after it had arrived back in Britain.

Police arrested three other men in Orpington and a 28-year-old man in Swanley, who was later released on police bail.

The remaining six men and a woman – all aged between 24 and 58 – appeared before Medway magistrates via videolink.

It is reported they have all been charged with importing and possessing firearms. They were remanded in custody.

Those arrested are David Payne, 42, and his partner Jennifer Arthy, 41, who live on a boat near the boat raided; John Smale, 58, of Rochester Road, Halling; Christopher Owen, 29, of Bush Road, Cuxton; Harry Shilling, 22, of Hart Dyke Road, Swanley, Kent; Michael Defraine, 29, of Franklin Road, Bexleyheath; and Richard Rye, 24, of Lime Road, Swanley, Kent.

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