Weapon smuggling

Scandinavian Streets Awash With Arms Smuggled From Balkans

Scandinavia has seen a dramatic influx of firearms in recent years. The lion's share of the smuggled arms stems from the war-ravaged Balkans and has been used in a number of attention-grabbing cases.

After the conflicts in the Balkans receded, a large number of weapons flooded Europe's black market. Today, Scandinavia's streets are awash with "foreign" and previously unseen gun brands, such as the Serbian Zastava and Czech-Serbian Scorpion machine guns, amid an unparalleled upswing in shooting incidents.

Although the origin of the arms was not investigated in a number of cases, the Norwegian Dagbladet daily reported that arms of South and East European origin are increasingly used in gang milieus and drug trafficking. This autumn alone, a dozen of men were charged with drug offences and illegal arms procurement as a follow-up to "Operation Hunger," during which arms sales from the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and the former Soviet Union were revealed.