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Stacked in several boxes: Confiscated firecrackers
Photo: Politie.nl
Investigators confiscated 120 tons of illegal firecrackers in a bunker in the German border area with the Netherlands. It is suspected that the firecrackers and firecrackers were intended for the black market in the Netherlands, said the Dutch police. Arrests following the cross-border investigation would not be ruled out. The bunkers are located near Rheine in Westphalia, as reported by the Dutch news agency ANP. The local police could not say anything about the investigation in detail on Saturday.
In the Netherlands there are restrictive rules for the sale and use of firecrackers and rockets, so that illegal imports across the borders have been in place for years well before the turn of the year. As the lead police in Rotterdam announced, disused bunkers in Belgium and Germany near the border are used to store the illegal firecrackers. Sometimes there is a permit there to store legal fireworks. In the course of the investigation, however, forbidden firecrackers had also been discovered, some with incorrect labeling. Intermediaries would pick up the illegal goods there in private cars.
Even these transports could be life-threatening, emphasized the Dutch police.
That is why she regularly carries out border controls, although only recently some of these transports coming from Germany were stopped.
There is also an enormous risk if large quantities of such firecrackers are stored in garden sheds or in an apartment in a large city until they are sold on.
hen / dpa
