CDR: Mobile phone guns seized

[An Metet]

FROM DAVID LISTER IN BRUSSELS

HANDGUNS made to look like mobile phones and activated by tapping a button on the keypad are among a stockpile of deadly gadgets seized by police after being smuggled into The Netherlands from Yugoslavia. 

The special Arrow unit of the Dutch police disclosed yesterday that it had seized eight of the Rshooting phonesS in raids on five Amsterdam addresses during the past three weeks. It also found 29 guns disguised as key rings. 

Cees Rameau, a spokesman for the Amsterdam police, said that each of the mobile phones, clearly intended to be used at close range, contained four .22 calibre bullets. RFor each shot, you have to press one of the numbers on the keypad. If you didnUt know they were guns, you wouldnUt suspect anything,S he said. 

Although police confirmed that most of the weapons had come from Yugoslavia, they did not know for whom they were intended. Mr Rameau said that five men and one woman had been arrested, including two from Yugoslavia, one from Croatia and one from Turkey. 

At one address in west Amsterdam, police seized 28 key-ring guns, 26lb of explosives, a machinegun, a pistol, a revolver, 2,000 bullets and 20 hand grenades. 

Police also discovered 19lb of heroin, a stash of fake Dutch banknotes and blank identification papers.