One address punched into the satellite navigation device of an Audi used by Harry Shilling and his righthand man, Michael Defraine, is stark. The coordinates lead to Zalaba Station in Slovakia, a quick drive away from a gun shop that is the source of thousands of deactivated weapons across Europe, many of which have ended up in the hands of criminal gangs and Islamist terrorists to unleash murder.

AFG Security, investigators believe, was the source of several of the of the firearms used by the Kouachi brothers in the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris and their friend Amedy Coulibaly, who killed five hostages at a kosher grocery store.

Gang found guilty of UK's largest known gun-smuggling operation Read more

The guns, former military AK47-style weapons and submachine guns, are sold legally in Slovakia as deactivated acoustic expansion weapons. But it is the work of a few hours for dealers to reactivate the weapons to make them lethal again.

The haul of firearms seized by British police as they moved in to arrest the gang in Kent on 11 August last year – having monitored their movements, encrypted emails and text messages for months – was significant both for its origin and rarity in the UK criminal scene.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the 22 AK47-type assault rifles – Czech-made VZ58 automatic rifles – and nine Skorpion submachine guns, had been sold between August 2014 and August 2015 by AFG in Slovakia. Illegally converted back to live firing weapons, they were transported overland from eastern Europe to France. It is a route that has been traced and retraced by police in Europe following the trafficking routes of assault rifles into the European Union.

But while AK47-type weapons have been used increasingly by criminal gangs in France, Holland and Denmark over the last six years, they are extremely rare in the UK because of the difficulty of getting them across the border.

Once they had crossed the channel stowed in specially adapted compartments of the motor cruiser the Albernina, they could have been sold by Shilling for up to £8,000 each, according to experts who gave evidence at the Old Bailey.

For Shilling, a 25-year-old who lived on his parents’ farm in Kent and was known to police as a member of an organised crime gang that trafficked drugs and had links to London street gangs, the purchase of a such a large haul of powerful military weapons was his entry into the underworld premier league.

“We are a firm ant [sic] we,” he said in an encrypted message to Defraine once the guns had arrived from France on the Albernina in Cuxton marina in August last year. “Proper heavy an armed to the teeth”, Defraine replied.

Other messages from Shilling uncovered by investigators reveal he was the UK end of a criminal cartel dealing in drugs, suggesting he was using the same routes and contacts to smuggle the firearms.



“We are now armed proper on both side proper cartel,” Shilling said to an associate in Europe after the firearms haul had reached the UK.

It was in March last year that the NCA began investigating Shilling and his associates after receiving intelligence they were attempting to import firearms from Europe. This was three months after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris had led investigators to AFG in Slovakia as the source of some of the terrorists’ weapons and two years after the European Union was warned by Slovakia that such firearms were being purchased and reactivated increasingly often.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ammunition seized during a raid in Kent. Photograph: National Crime Agency/PA

The EU knew of concerns about the ease with which such weapons were bought, reactivated and then used by criminal gangs in Europe as long ago as 2008. Discussions were ongoing to tighten legislation and standardise deactivation methods across the continent but it was not until November last year – after the Bataclan atrocity, that the EU finally attempted to tighten their rules.



Once alerted to suspicions that Shilling was attempting to import firearms from Europe, the NCA, working with Kent police, put him and his associates under surveillance. Their monitoring included the successful decoding of PGP encryption software used by Shilling and Defraine and others on their multiple BlackBerry phones.

The trail the gang left was followed by the NCA, revealing several trips to eastern Europe by Shilling and Defraine in the run-up to the importation.

The firearms were bought as decommissioned weapons for as little as £38 each and the gang hoped to make up to £250,000 selling them to criminal contacts. But the nexus between crime gangs and Islamist extremists exposed by several high profile European and UK terror cases has increased police fears that assault rifles and other automatic firearms could be used in the UK by terrorists.

Duncan Atkinson, QC told the Old Bailey the Kent gang was not just purchasing the firearms as trophies. “They were working weapons and they came with a large amount of working ammunition ... The defendants intended these guns to be used ... as lethal weapons capable of unleashing carnage on a terrifying scale.”

On 20 June last year, Shilling and Richard Rye, who was known as his loyal lieutenant, made funds available to David Payne to buy the Albernina for £24,500 from a boatseller in Sandwich, Kent.

Payne, who lived on a boat in Cuxton Marina with had spent weeks scouring the internet for a suitable vessel with enough hiding places for the firearms, in the weeks before the trip, the court heard. With his associates he prepared the boat for the smuggling operation.

In the weeks leading up to 10 August, the day the firearms were smuggled into the UK on the vessel, Shilling and Defraine made several trips to eastern Europe, their movements traced by investigators from CCTV at border crossings, documentation stamped by border officials and the satellite coordinates in the vehicles they were driving.

The satnav coordinates in an Audi used by Defraine and Shilling included several addresses in Romania, Hungary and Zalaba Station in Slovakia, just 40 miles from the AFG shop in Partizánske.

Once the weapons were purchased, encrypted text messages between the gang described the operation to move the firearms across Europe, to Boulogne in France, on to the Albernina and across the Channel to Kent.



At 5.17pm on 10 August last year, Payne, who was skippering the vessel with its illegal haul across the Channel, sent a message to Rye to say: “All done.”

An hour later Shilling messaged Defraine – who by then was on his way back to the UK via the Eurostar from Brussels – to say: “There (sic) home.” A few minutes later, he added: “We now officially gangsters.”

Defraine replied: “Fucking nice one.” To which Shilling replied: “Duck and run for cover bitches.”

An hour-and-a-half later, at 8.47pm, Shilling was arranging the sale of some of the weapons to a contact in a criminal gang in London.

“Next month I have 30 glocks I will sell.” To which his associate B – a criminal from the south-east who has not been identified – replied: “OK mate let me polish the ak first and then u gonna give sweets [ammunition] with them?”

Shilling replied: “Yea theres (sic) 2 clips with each one.”

The pair arranged for B to pick up his part of the haul on the evening of 11 August – after the weapons had been unloaded by Payne and others from the boat, which had docked at Cuxton marina and loaded into a Renault van. Shilling intended to bury the rest of the weapons in a cache in rural Kent for sale or use at another time.

“Tonite mate but it must be tonite,” Shilling told B on 11 August , “or there getting buried.”

But at 12.45pm that day, armed police swooped on the Albernina and the Renault van which had just been loaded with three holdalls and a suitcase full of weapons. Payne was arrested as he drove the van away from the marina. Asked what was inside, he replied: “Guns.”

At 2.15pm, as Shilling and Defraine left a Homebase near Orpington, where they had bought bags, chemicals and tools to bury the majority of the firearms in a secret cache, they were intercepted by police in the Audi and arrested.

Shilling was in the front passenger seat with the door open, while Defraine stood on the driver’s side of the car. The boot was open and there were two spades propped up against the rear bumper and four dry bags, Homebase household ammonia, a set of knee pads and gardening gloves on the rear seat.

Shilling turned pale, broke into a sweat and struggled to breath as he was put under arrest. Rye was arrested shortly afterwards at a McDonald’s outside Orpington.

As the hours passed and all seven members of the gang were secured in custody, Shilling’s contact B sent repeated messages attempting to confirm the collection of the AK47s. “Can I send my driver now. He be in ur endz for 7???” he said.

‘Hi m8 no u r busy can u tell me ruff time my shall be in area.”

“Shall I send driver???????? Its getting late mate’, ‘U there. Mate’, ‘Yo wats happnin???”

And finally when he began to realise the silence was ominous, he sent one more message: “You ok getting worried shall I get rid of this phn.”

He is likely to have discarded his phone shortly afterwards. Despite ongoing police investigations B’s identity has never been established and he is still at large.