A souvenir shop in the city of Siena, Italy, sold toys and decorative items assembled with real bullets that could be used by anyone with basic knowledge of guns.
The 25,000 AK-47 bullets were discovered during a control operation by the Siena Financial Guard. Most of them were used to assemble children’s toys like tanks, guns and attack planes, which were sold for €10 each. Further investigation revealed the Chinese owner of the shop got his lethal merchandise from a warehouse in Florence, which was also owned by a Chinese citizen. It’s suspected the raw material for the so-called toys was shipped over from mainland China, where it was probably obtained at no cost at all, from military deposits.
Upon inspecting this hidden arsenal, Italian authorities discovered it was live ammunition that could easily have been used by practically anyone familiar with guns. Even more disturbing is that the Kalshnikov cartridges had steel bullets, which made them a lot more dangerous than the lead ones used by Italian armed forces. Just think what could have happened if a child accidentally dropped or slammed one of these bullet toys on a hard surface.
Apart from toys assembled from live ammo, the shop also sold real Ak-47 rifles, Chinese military caps, and even bullet-pierced metal helmets.
