Weapons imports

I was warned that travel to Liberia this year would be unwise on two counts: the crime rate is through the roof, and upcoming electioneering stood a good chance of becoming kinetic. BBC reports that the Liberian police, acting on a tip, found a container containing weapons and ammunition. They sealed the container for security reasons (I'll bet some of the material has already gone walkies), but some of the ammunition doesn't match the machines they have, so there's probably more. The receipient's home had weapons in the ceiling.

BBC: "The cache includes Omega 15 assault rifles, Rock River LAR guns, and double-barrel automatic machine guns which were displayed to journalists." The first two seem to be civilian non-automatic models.

Front Page Africa:

at least 15 assorted riffles have been discovered so far. “But those 15 weapons if you get them you can destabilize this country because those are high-ferocity-powered firing weapons. We’re talking about weapons that use 20-caliber rounds, 30-caliber rounds – those are not joking weapons,” Col Sudue said. Several ammunitions were also discovered.

...

During the search of the consignee’s home (Boye Baker) in Brewersville, more weapons were discovered in the ceiling. Also found hiding in the ceiling is a man identified as Tamba who is also in police custody.

While the police have beef-up up scrutiny due to concerns as to how this ammunition have being smuggled into the country, with fear of consequences it may have on the pending elections if tough security measure is not put into place, the LNP has announced a major inspection of vehicle across the country to avoid security threats.

As part of security parole, LNP said it will remove unauthorized security features from vehicles across the country.

Thursday security seizure uncovered over ten document-preserved boxes loaded with the stock of the rifles discovered according to security sources mounted with long-range lance glasses including M203 launcher gadgets, American-made M16, and AK47, among others.

There's a bit of inconsistency in the descriptions, but the photos suggest a bit of a hodge-podge.

When the warlords agreed to disarm, I did not hear of anything like enough weapons being collected afterwards--so I assume they either were resold (unlikely) or went into hidden caches. And since logistic s are supposed to be a consideration when planning a war, a hodge-podge isn't what you want.

2 cases seem most likely.

• The weapons are for one of the criminal gangs in the city
• They are for a dealer who is supplying people in the city who are worried about those criminal gangs and want their own retainers armed to match them.