Military equipment, including grenades and high explosives, stolen from the military base at Tancos, Santarém, conveniently has turned up in the countryside not far away in Chamusca.
The material supposedly was found in the middle of an area of scrubland after an anonymous tip-off saw military police and GNR officers speeding to the site.
The 44 weapons, grenades and explosives were scattered around the area. The military police states that officers recovered the material at dawn on Wednesday 18th October, with the collaboration of the criminal investigation team of the GNR in Loulé, and that the dangerous haul already is under the protection of the Army.
The only items still to be accounted for is the cache of 9mm ammunition.
The news of the disappearance of military material was made public by the Army on June 29th this year with the defence minister considering the situation "serious" but later deciding that as there were no signs of forced entry at the poorly guarded arms depot, an accounting error might mean that nothing had been stolen at all.
The minister tried to keep the list under wraps but it was soon published in a Spanish newspaper and widely available across Portuguese media and included
1,450 9 mm cartridges;
22 Wire coils for traction activation;
1 Decompression trigger;
24 Inert multidimensional lateral traction triggers;
6 CS / MOD M7 tear gas hand grenades;
10 Hand grenades of tear gas CM Anti-riot M / 968;
2 Hand Grenades of tear gas Triplex CS;
90 M321 offensive hand grenades;
30 M962 offensive hand grenades;
30 Offensive hand grenades M321;
44 Grenades 66mm antitank rockets with fuse;
264 PE4A plastic explosive units;
60 IKS primers;
30.5 Blades KSL (Blast blade.)
The possibility of the material still being in Portugal was one of the scenarios outlined by the police whose investigators, while suspecting that there was not much of a market for this sort of equipment within Portugal’s borders, said it could be hidden and sold off bit by bit.
This 'discovery' could rule out the involvement of highly organised terrorist groups or international arms dealers, according to many of Portugal's national news services.
As for the mysterious involvement of Loulé GNR in the recovery of the weapons, Natasha Donn at The Resident takes a look:
'Mystery of Loulé GNR involvement in recovery of stolen military hardware'
