BRITISH ARMS DEALER JAILED FOR ATTEMPTING TO SMUGGLE WEAPONS INTO NIGERIA

The Southwark Crown Court in London on Wednesday sentenced a 42-year-old British arms dealer, Gary Hyde, to seven years in jail for attempting to smuggle 80,000 AK47 assault rifles and 32 million rounds of ammunition into Nigeria.Click on read more below to continue...

Hyde oversaw the £800,000 shipment of tens of thousands of assault rifles, 9mm pistols, rifles, and bullets, from China to Africa in 2007, The Telegraph of London reports.

Hyde, who started in the gun trade when he was 14, flouted British legislation designed to control the trade and transportation of the weapons despite being regarded as an “authority” on those laws.

The businessman, based in York, acted in “a deliberate and calculated breach of the law” to pull off the $1.3m (£808,000) deal in return for around £280,000, which he attempted to hide in a bank account in Liechtenstein.

The account was registered in the name of a trust of which Hyde and his children were named as the sole beneficiaries.

It is thought the weapons were being bought on behalf of the Nigerian Police force.

After a 10-day trial in October a jury unanimously convicted Hyde of two counts of breaching UK laws and one count of concealing criminal property.