Six arrested for arms smuggling

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 13

Six arrested for arms smuggling

Wew Zealand Press Association)

ROME, January 13.

Suspected arms smugglers arrested in Modena planned to supply Ghana and other African countries with war equipment worth §NZ1,140,000, according to Italian press reports.

The material was said to include tanks and aircraft.

The five people arrested in Modena were members of the “M.G.M.” import-export firm headed by 46-year-old Count Gherardo Boshetti, who was one of those arrested. A sixth man was arrested in Terni.

The newspaper “11 Giorno” reported that “M.G.M.” purchased arms through a Swissnaturalised Italian representative of French and Italian arms manufacturers. The man lived in Marseilles.

Meanwhile, a 35-year-old German. Rudolf Lenz, one of those arrested in Modena, was said by “II Giorno” to have visited Ghana last summer to handle the deal. “11 Gornio” said that the deal fell through when Italian officials investigated the “M.G.M.” firm last November.

i The newspaper said that part of the profits and perhaps even some of the weapons had been earmarked for a neo-Fascist unit recently unmasked in Turin. Two other newspapers, “Il Giornale” and “La Stampa,”

reported that the alleged ring’s arms suppliers included not only France and Italy but also Belgium, West Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.

The weapons were said to

have been destined for the Middle East as well as Africa.