Police have seized a consignment of 1,000 illegally imported firearms at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi.
Police say the automatic rifles were imported from Belgium by a local dealer whose license has been suspended by the Firearms Licensing Board (FLB) and are estimated to be worth Sh300 million.
The sophisticated FN Scar riffles were brought to the country by Sailesh Mistry of CatEyes Ltd. and have been detained at JKIA for non-compliance.
The FN SCAR is semi-automatic rifle manufactured in 2009 and is described as very effective and lethal in combat. The FN SCAR is designed in Belgium and manufactured in California, US.
One such gun costs around Sh310,000 and is mainly used by elite units such as United States Navy SEALs and US Marines. In Africa, only the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) commando unit, the Special Forces (SF) is armed with these rifles.
Contacted by the Standard, the company behind the importation of the rifles declined to comment on the matter saying it would affect its business with the State.
“We dealers have been suspended until we are cleared. That is that. There is nothing big about it. You will put me in the limelight and the authorities might come for me and I don’t want anything like that to happen,” the firm told the Standard.
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