Police stop 500,000 bullets
Half a million rounds of military ammunition hidden in a truck carrying charcoal from Albania have been seized by border guards in northern Greece, police said on Saturday. Officers at the Kakkavia border crossing searched the vehicle and arrested its Greek driver, a 45-year-old Cretan whose name was not made public, late on Friday following a tip-off that Albanian arms and ammunition were being regularly smuggled into the country in a Greek truck for sale in Crete. The ammunition is believed to have been part of the vast arsenal looted from Albanian army camps during the spring 1997 popular uprising in Greece’s small northern neighbor, following the collapse of a highly popular pyramid investment scheme. Thousands of the stolen weapons have since found their way to Greece, ending up either in the hands of criminals or in the gun-worshiping villages of Crete. Most of the bullets found in the truck, which was carrying 23 tons of charcoal, were still in their original metal boxes while a large number had been stuffed into sacks.
