Uzi and AK-47 machine guns seized after police crack Encrochat phone network
Written by News on 21/10/2020
Four machine guns were seized in London, Warrington and Manchester after an encrypted global phone network was cracked.
Two AK-47 assault rifles along with an Uzi and a Skorpion submachine gun were recovered after the National Crime Agency (NCA) launched an investigation earlier this year.
It came as part of Operation Venetic, the UK response to the takedown of the encrypted global Encrochat network.
It was believed the £3,000 phones – often used by criminals to secretly communicate – could not be cracked, but law enforcement managed to breach the encryption.
The operation became the UK’s biggest ever single crime bust with a series of operations and raids on organised gangs.
In April, officers seized the AK-47 hidden in a commercial building in Warrington, Cheshire.
The same month, officers in London seized the Uzi and Skorpion machine guns, 300 rounds of ammunition, £180,000 in cash and a kilo of cocaine.
A second AK-47 was seized in Manchester in June.
On Tuesday, three men were arrested and charged with conspiracy to possess firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life or to enable another person to endanger life.
The men are Bilal Khan, 32, of Mersey Road, Didsbury, Manchester; Umair Zaheer, 33, of Somerset Road, Eccles, Manchester; and Hitesh Patel, 26, of Garden Lane, Chester, Cheshire.
Robert Brazendale, 33, was arrested by the Spanish National Police in Estepona on the Costa del Sol, on a European Arrest Warrant, on suspicion of the same offence.
Brazendale, of Warrington, Cheshire, has been remanded to custody in Spain and faces extradition.
Neil Gardner, NCA operations manager, said: “The arrests by the NCA and Spanish National Police are the latest in a long line made since Operation Venetic was announced in July this year.
“As part of this investigation the NCA and our policing partners have removed some of the most deadly firearms that exist.”
(c) Sky News 2020: Uzi and AK-47 machine guns seized after police crack Encrochat phone network
