UK drug gangs armed with terrifying military-grade weapons including submachine gun

dailystar.co.uk:

READ MORE: Man, 29, arrested in connection with 9-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel's murderThe gangs who buy them are behind a wave of violence in North West cities including Manchester and Liverpool, where nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel was shot dead in her home.

Meanwhile lower-level street gangs are raiding farmhouses in rural areas and robbing licensed owners to steal shotguns to order.And dealers are buying blank firing pistols and converting them into deadly weapons as they look to muscle in to the multimillion pound trade in heroin, cocaine and cannabis.

A source close to the trade in illegal weapons said: “There’s a network of major criminal gangs in Liverpool, Manchester and Salford – interlinked criminals who often do bits of work together – who can access military grade hardware.

I’m talking about submachine guns, automatic weapons, Glock semi-automatic pistols – even explosives and grenades.” Our investigators also uncovered a thriving trade on encrypted messenger sites like Telegram, where Glock pistols are imported in parts for as little as £500 and posted to UK addresses.There were 4,099 firearm discharges recorded in the 12 months to March last year – 536 were linked to shotguns, 2,125 to handguns and 1,438 to imitation firearms.