Military-grade weapons which can fire 15 bullets in under a second are making their way into the hands of criminals on UK streets, police have said.
The “battlefield” weapons are smuggled from places like Czech Republic and Slovakia where they can be bought legally with a permit, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Detectives at Merseyside Police said at least three fatal shootings last year involved a Skorpion sub-machine gun, manufactured in Czech, but not in the case of Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s murder.
Thomas Cashman, 34, was found guilty of gunning down the schoolgirl and wounding her mother Cheryl Korbel, 46, after chasing convicted drug dealer Joseph Nee, 36, into their home last August.
The senseless violence rocked the community as the family's world was flipped upside down.
After deliberating for eight hours, the jury of 10 men and two women found Cashman guilty after listening to evidence for nearly four weeks.
Detective Chief Superintendent Mark Kameen said the “narrative needs changing” to prevent these weapons reaching the hands of criminals with a “lack of moral compass”.
“If you start bringing that sort of battlefield military weaponry into communities and discharging it... You add that to the chaotic nature, lack of training, no moral compass, that’s where you get now the last three times a Skorpion has been used in Merseyside someone’s been killed every single time.
“Is it any wonder when this gun’s firing 12 or 13 rounds in less than a second?”
The NCA says that illegal guns are often consolidated in the Netherlands before being transited to France.
They're usually concealed in vehicles on Channel ferry and tunnel routes to get to the UK. But in some cases the guns can be bought on the ‘dark web’ and sent via parcel post.
In some countries, de-activated guns can also be bought and then reactivated or converted in the UK by “garden shed gunsmiths”, according to ex-Met cop Peter Bleksley.
Of nearly 50 shootings in Merseyside last year, five were fatal, including the deaths of Ashley Dale, Elle Edwards and Olivia Pratt-Korbel.
But Mr Kameen said the others could also have turned into murder investigations.
“We had people firing at cars driving past, putting bullets through windows or people’s front doors - anyone could be behind.
“That’s just the madness and complete lack of moral compass these people have we are dealing with.
“The other factor is some of the weaponry is changing.”
Mr Kameen said Czech-manufactured Skorpion machine pistols had been used by criminals in the UK over the past two years.
The weapons are capable of discharging 850 rounds a minute, he said.
He urged communities to come forward if they had any information about where firearms were being kept.
“We are hellbent on trying to get these weapons off the street and hellbent on trying to tackle serious organised crime,” he said.
Mr Kameen said the introduction of Skorpion weapons was not a problem unique to Merseyside, but had been seen across the UK.
He said: “What is not a surprise is, with any type of criminality, Merseyside criminals seem to be, if not at the forefront, very close to it.”
In March, NCA officers successfully caught and jailed the accomplice of a Czech arms dealer who had been running an operation in Liverpool.
Radek Dobias, 42, formerly of Anfield, Liverpool, was jailed for 12 years and nine months at Manchester Crown Court last month.
In April 2018, Border Force officers at the port of Dover discovered a Slovakian-made Grand Power Stribog SR9A2 rifle and 465 rounds of ammunition concealed in foam in a van.
NCA forensic officers found Dobias’s DNA on the recovered firearm, but he was not in the UK at the time.
He was tracked down in the Czech Republic, and after serving a four-year sentence for unrelated theft, criminal damage, and forgery offences, he flew into Manchester Airport in March 2022.
NCA officers were waiting for him and he was arrested.
Dobias’s criminal associate, Marek Platko, 32, also of Anfield Liverpool,
was arrested at Liverpool John Lennon Airport two days after the seizure as he flew in from Prague.
The gun runner attempted to smuggle a semi-automatic machine gun capable of causing “mass casualties” into the UK.
Marek Platko was jailed for 22 years after trying to bring the deadly firearm into the country.
