Police Seize Machine Guns And Swastikas From Far-Right Biker Gangs

A massive stash of Nazi regalia and hundreds of machine guns and grenade launchers has been seized in police raids on far-right biker gangs in Austria.

Footage obtained from the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior shows row upon row of handguns and assault rifles flanked by Nazi flags in what they described as a weapons sales room.

Officers from the country’s SWAT-like Cobra force raided 13 properties run by motorcycle gangs in Upper and Lower Austria, close to Adolf Hitler’s birthplace.

The footage shows rows of handguns laid out alongside what appear to be deadly Steyr Aug assault rifles with a fire rate of up to 750 rounds a minute.

Illegal drugs and more than EUR 1 million (GBP 860,000) in cash were also seized, the Austrian authorities said.

Alois Ebner – head of the investigating public prosecutor’s office in Ried im Innkreis – said one target address was a farm which was a “professionally set up illegal weapons depot with sales room”.

Some weapons were even displayed in showcases in the basement.

Six people were arrested, with police saying they are from “outlawed motorcycle gangs”.

The operation took place on Monday, 26th June, with the raids only being revealed on Thursday, 29th June.

Police said they had seized 35 long firearms, 25 sub-machine guns, 100 pistols, 10,000 rounds of ammunition and grenade launchers.

They also confiscated more than a thousand firearms parts and 400 flare guns.

Austrian Interior Ministry officials said that in December 2022 they heard that the lawless international Bandidos biker group wanted to set up in Austria.

They said that a similar invasion in Switzerland had triggered a bloody turf war between the Hells Angels and the Bandidos.

Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, the head of Austria’s counterintelligence agency (DSN), said: “The investigations have shown the extent to which right-wing extremism is represented in outlaw motorcycle gangs.”

Austria has strict anti-Nazi legislation banning anything that glorifies the Third Reich, including owning Nazi memorabilia.