Taiwanese armed forces were not the source of a rifle retrieved yesterday by police following a raid on Wednesday on an alleged illegal gun factory in Taoyuan’s Gueishan District (龜山), National Police Agency Director-General Huang Ming-chao (黃明昭) said.
An early probe showed that the rifle was in a half-finished state with a missing fire control mechanism, and was not made by any state-owned factory, he told a news conference in Taipei.
The firearm was part of a cache comprised of three rifles, gun parts, tools and a signficant amount of ammunition discovered on the property of a man surnamed Lo (羅), who is suspected of being an illegal gunmaker and has been under police surveillance since last month, Huang said.
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Additionally, imitation gunmaker OB Design Studio claimed credit for the creation, saying on Facebook that the company “has complicated feelings about seeing its product on the second page of the morning newspaper.”
Investigators previously suspected the rifle had been stolen from a military arsenal or constructed out of stolen parts because markings on the gun — which included serial No. 422064 — suggested government manufacture, he said.
The Ministry of National Defense has ordered another round of inventory checks to confirm if a T65K2 rifle bearing the serial number is missing, and it is working with law enforcement to investigate the origin of the bullets, Huang said.
The raid on the alleged gunmaker was a joint operation conducted by the Second Police Corps and Gueishan Precinct of the Taoyuan Police Department, he said.
Semi-functional imitation guns are a source of material for illegal gunmakers, who can buy the weapons legally before adding components to restore firing ability, Huang said.
The sale of deactivated guns was restricted in 2020 after the government amended the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例), police said.
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