Vienna police find far-right arms cache
POLICE IN Vienna have uncovered a substantial illegal weapons cache destined for far-right militias in Germany.
After conducting raids on apartments across the city last week, Vienna police announced on 12 December that they had found 100 automatic and semi-automatic weapons, 100,000 rounds of ammunition and 24 items of explosives including hand grenades.
In addition, police discovered 12,300 grams of amphetamines, 260 grams of cocaine, and 110 grams of cannabis along with £5,276 in cash.
The purchase of weapons was financed by the sale of drugs, Vienna police said in a statement, tying together Austria and Germany’s extreme-right with its organized crime scene.
Islamist groups use the same financial model in order to fund their terror activities in Europe, Austria’s interior minister Karl Nehammer said.
Five men aged between 21 and 53 were arrested by Vienna police. Working with authorities in the German states of Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, two additional suspects were taken into custody across the border.
Mr Nehammer said that those arrested belonged to Austria’s neoNazi scene and were long known to security services.
The weapons found in Vienna were to be sent to far-right groups in Germany with the intent of building up militias there.
This latest discovery by Vienna police shines a light on the murky world of cross-border cooperation between farr ight indiv iduals and groups across central Europe.
In a separate case, several members of the far-right network European Action have been accused by Vienna state prosecutors of violating Austria’s ban on Nazi activities and preparing to commit high treason.
The men allegedly worked together to build up a militarized, neo-Nazi wing of European Action in Austria, whose aim was the restoration of the Greater German Reich.
Founded in 2010 by the Swiss Holocaust denier Bernhard Schaub, European Action supports repealing bans on Nazi activities and Holocaust denial.
The weapons were to be sent to farright groups in Germany’