A 78-year-old man has been charged with alleged licensing offences after police seized a large quantity of weapons from a business in Edinburgh.

Seized weapons including firearms

In line with Police Scotland’s commitment to tackling violence, officers carried out a search of a shop in the Leith area on Thursday last week, following intelligence that the venue was selling a number of goods without the appropriate licence.

This activity was undertaken as part of an ongoing operation to target the unlicensed sale of weapons in the Capital.

As a result, 200 items including firearms, swords, daggers, aces and morning stars worth around £40,000 were recovered. These will now be destroyed.

A similar search was carried out at a business address in the city centre on Tuesday 30th April and over £100,000 worth of weapons, were seized.

The man charged following last week’s activity will now be reported to the Procurator Fiscal.

Chief Superintendent Mark Williams, Divisional Commander for the City of Edinburgh said: “Police Scotland is committed to keeping people safe and reducing the number of victims of violent crime.

“Bladed weapons and firearms are a blight on our communities and the items removed from this store have the potential to inflict serious harm on the public.

“All of these weapons should only be sold by vendors with the appropriate licence and anyone found to be trading without the necessary permissions can expect to be visited by police.”

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