Nearly 70 people, including military officials and police officers, have been charged for illegally trading in arms, after over 2,000 firearms were seized from a series of stashes across the country.
The Norwegian police have disclosed the results of "Operation Bonanza", a four-year investigation into illegal weapons sales that was launched in 2015, when an exceptionally large amount of firearms was seized in Telemark County, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported.
In total, the police have found at least 2,361 weapons, many of them military-grade, in what has been dubbed the largest-ever case of illegal arms in Norway. The "trophies" include machine guns used by the police for special missions, revolvers, automatic weapons, and even a recoil-free gun that can be used against armoured vehicles. The seizures, the largest of which counted as many as 600 weapons, occurred at undisclosed locations across Norway.