SYDNEY: Police arrested a man who attempted to import hundreds of firearm parts from the United States (US) into Australia, reported Xinhua.
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Australian Border Force (ABF) said in a joint statement on Friday that the 34-year-old man was stopped for inspection by officials on arrival at the Brisbane Airport on June 26.
Authorities said that the man was travelling from the US with a consignment of nine packages, which were later found to contain hundreds of individual firearm parts.
All the packages, which had been sent from the US under false descriptions to addresses in the states of Queensland and Victoria, were intercepted by the ABF and sent for forensic analysis.
The suspect has been charged in court with nine counts of firearm parts trafficking. For each of the offences, it carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment.
The AFP will allege in court that the man planned to assemble the firearm parts in Australia and sell the weapons for 20,000 Australian dollars (US$13,006) each.
AFP Detective Superintendent Adrian Telfer said that the parts could have been assembled into more than 30 handguns. - Bernama-Xinhua
