Antique dealer sold bullets and guns used in 100 crimes
A ROGUE antique firearms dealer turned his village home into a munitions factory linked to more than 100 crimes including three murders.
Paul Edmunds, 66, who told police he ‘didn’t give a s***’ who he sold weapons to, was found guilty yesterday of conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition.
The registered gun dealer supplied a banned Colt pistol fired in a fatal shooting at a London nightclub and ammunition used in two killings in Birmingham. His bullets were also used in an attempt to shoot down a police helicopter in Birmingham during the 2011 riots.
The ‘ammunition freak’ used his garage to craft bullets, bringing vintage weapons back into use. Police believe he sold them partly through arrogance and partly to pay off his £70,000 debts.
Some of his guns, including a 19th century St Etienne and Smith & Wesson revolvers, were brought here legally as collectors’ items. But he also imported banned guns following 37 trips to the US, having falsely signed customs forms claiming they were obsolete.
The guns were not checked in any detail at UK customs, Birmingham Crown Court heard.
Judge Richard Bond described he had been ‘aghast to hear evidence of a dealer being waved through ... by customs at Heathrow’ without proper checks. Edmunds, from Hardwicke, Gloucestershire, machine-tooled cartridges in out-of-date calibres, bringing them back into circulahow tion. Many could be classed as antiques because they were more than 100 years old and had ammunition no longer available.
Edmunds sold the weapons and cartridges to middleman Mohinder Surdhar, a physiotherapist.
Police linked Edmunds to a spike in gun crime in Birmingham after microscopic tests confirmed there was a single ammunition-maker.
A paper trail led to Edmunds, while officers noticed a bag full of rounds made with tell-tale red dye under his table at a Birmingham gun fair. Following his 2015 arrest, 100,000 live rounds were seized from his garage, while seven wheelie bin-loads of components were found in the house.
Jurors also convicted Edmunds of possessing a prohibited air pistol and perverting the course of justice by filing down a bullet press to destroy potential evidence.
The jury were told Edmunds’s bullets were recovered following the Birmingham murders of Derek Myers, 25, in 2015, and Kenichi Phillips, 18, in 2016, as well as a fatal shooting at the Avalon nightclub in London in 2013.
In all, 17 criminally-linked weapons recovered by police are known to have been imported by Edmunds, while around 1,000 bullets connected to him have been recovered from crime scenes across Britain. These include around 50 gang-related shootings and premises raided by police between 2010 and 2016.
Surdhar, 56, from Handsworth, Birmingham, admitted conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition between 2009 and 2015 before Edmunds’s trial. They will both be sentenced next month. Edmunds’s barrister acknowledged he faces a sentence of at least 25 years.
Detective Constable Phil Rodgers, who led the investigation, said: ‘Their actions have had a devastating impact on communities by fuelling violent crime, leading to fear and bloodshed.’