\n Rahim Kizito and Godfree Mbugoniwia would take blank-firing weapons and adapt them to fire live ammunition, which they would make at an address in Birmingham.\n<\/p>\n
\n Following their arrest in 2023, West Midlands Police officers searched a flat in Wharfdale Road, South Yardley, finding three viable firearms and compatible ammunition, as well as suspected Class A drugs.\n<\/p>\n
\n A warrant was later carried out in Russell Street, Rubery, where officers found a manufacturing station where the weapons would be adapted to fire live ammunition.\n<\/p>\n
\n A large amount of empty bullet casings, magazines for handguns and tools used to adapt firearms were found at the workbench.\n<\/p>\n
\n The workbench where\u00a0tools were found (Image: West Midlands Police) Enquiries established Kizito’s role as the maker and armourer, adapting the firearms and ammunition, while Mbugoniwia’s role was to help sell the guns on to criminals.\n<\/p>\n
\n Messages were uncovered by officers showing Mbugoniwia talking to customers about the weapons and their price, as well as the quantity of ammunition to be supplied with them.\n<\/p>\n
\n Each weapon would be sold for between \u00a31,000 and \u00a33,000 depending on the specifications of the customer.\n<\/p>\n
\n Both men denied being involved, but were charged with firearms offences in late 2023.
On 28 July both men were jailed for over 25 years at Birmingham Crown Court.\n<\/p>\n
\n Firearms recovered (Image: West Midlands Police) Rahim Kizito, aged 29, of Russell Street, Cofton Hackett, was jailed for 13 years and seven months.\n<\/p>\n
\n Godfree Mbugoniwia, aged 27, of Brunswick Road, Birmingham, jailed for 12 years and nine months.\n<\/p>\n
\n Detective Sergeant Adam Buzzard, from the County Lines Taskforce, said: \u201cThis was a serious case involving high-level criminality putting live firearms in the hands of criminals.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThanks to the efforts of the Major Crime Team, we were able to uncover the extensive operation and potentially save dozens of lives”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rahim Kizito and Godfree Mbugoniwia would take blank-firing weapons and adapt them to fire live ammunition, which they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-319465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}