MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax) - The activities of illegal workshops specializing in converting non-military weapons into combat weapons and selling them have been stopped in 28 Russian regions as the result of a largescale operation, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said.
"The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation together with the Interior Ministry of Russia, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, and the Russian Guard dismantled the unlawful operations of 72 people in 28 regions of the country who were restoring the combat properties of civilian weapons in backstreet workshops and then selling them," the FSB's press center told reporters on Friday.
Searches and other investigative procedures were carried out at the suspects' places of residence in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the republics of Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Karelia, Crimea, Mordovia, North Ossetia-Alania, and Khakassia, the Trans-Baikal, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, and Khabarovsk territories, the Amur, Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Bryansk, Vladimir, Volgograd, Voronezh, Leningrad, Lipetsk, Rostov, Irkutsk, Kursk, Tver, and Smolensk regions, and the Jewish Autonomous Region, the press center said.
"The operations of 37 backstreet workshops that specialized in modernizing weapons and making ammunition have been stopped," it said.