Thursday, the discovery of a shell on the stand of a flea market in the Oise required the evacuation of a large part of the event, reports the Actu Oise site.
Fortunately, the ammunition was actually already neutralized.
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During Ascension Thursday, a sale of second-hand items is organized in the town of Crèvecœur-le-Grand.
Officers from the customs brigade carry out checks to verify that there are no stolen goods, counterfeits or protected animals being sold there.
On a stall, they then discover a shell dating from the First World War.
Problem, the seller is not able to say if the ammunition has been neutralized.
For safety, the gendarmes and firefighters were immediately called in for reinforcement, while exhibitors and visitors were evacuated.
“
The photos of the shell were sent to deminers who identified the projectile as inactive
,” a gendarmerie officer told our colleagues from
Courrier Picard
.
The flea market was then able to resume its course.
The seller was placed in customs detention, the equivalent of police custody within the customs administration.
In parallel, a control visit was to take place at his home to verify that he does not have other dangerous objects.
On this kind of very old ammunition, "
over time, either the firing system becomes inactive, or one day it detonates on its own
", warned the Customs Department to the Actu.fr site.