Remscheid arms trader sentenced to six and a half years over 300-firearm cache

The verdict

On Friday, 30 October 2026, the Wuppertal Regional Court sentenced the 60-year-old main defendant to six years and six months in prison for arms trafficking. The court also ordered the confiscation of 74,000 euros, which it said was the income from his weapons deals. The sentence falls within a deal agreed beforehand between the court, prosecutors and the defence, which foresaw six to seven years in exchange for a confession. The judgment is not yet final. The man has been in pretrial detention for a year, and the court kept the arrest warrant in force because of a high risk of flight. According to the court, he could be released after serving two-thirds of the sentence.

Prosecution request68,000

Court order74,000

Prosecution request

68000 EUR

Court order

74000 EUR

Data from the article text

Positions in the trial

Prosecutors had asked for six years and ten months in prison and the confiscation of 68,000 euros. The defence requested six years, the lower limit of the agreed range, and said the family had faced severe financial hardship since the arrest. Prosecutors did not believe the defendant's account that he had come by live weapons by chance when buying a private collection, since these are the weapons criminal groups seek for robberies and gang clashes. The defence said pre-trial press coverage had made his situation worse and that suspicions of gang membership or organised crime had not been borne out. The defendant called collecting Second World War weapons his hobby.

What investigators found

Investigators had been active for more than a year before, on 26 October 2025, numerous officers moved on the workshop and the owner's house. In the cellar they found a museum-style display with Second World War relics, swastika flags and SS uniforms. Further hidden rooms turned up over several days, some behind a safe or a display case, and a building floor plan helped locate them. Four chambers in total were cleared over several weeks, with more than 200 emergency personnel working and the building's flats having to be cleared. The building sits in a residential area next to a school. Officers secured around 300 live firearms: 125 machine guns, 67 submachine guns, 51 pistols, 32 long guns and precision rifles, and 11 revolvers. They also seized 13 anti-tank weapons, 38 hand grenades and almost 100,000 rounds of ammunition. The prosecution argued that 87 of the weapons were immediately functional, and some of the weapons were unusable.

A spokesperson for the Wuppertal prosecutor's office stressed the danger the arsenal posed.

“With the seized hand grenades and explosives, a large number of people could have been killed or injured.”

Machine guns125

Submachine guns67

Pistols51

Long guns and precision rifles32

Revolvers11

Machine guns

125 weapons

Submachine guns

67 weapons

Pistols

51 weapons

Long guns and precision rifles

32 weapons

Revolvers

11 weapons

Data from the article text

Charges and co-defendants

The charges covered eight counts under the war weapons control act and the weapons control act, and the court found him guilty of intentionally acquiring actual control over war weapons. He admitted buying 70 compact Skorpion submachine guns in Poland. The court counted his confession in his favour as mitigation. Two co-defendants were tried separately, and in September the court sentenced them to three and a half years and two and a half years for arms trafficking; those judgments are final. One of them, a 38-year-old man, bought six submachine guns and ammunition from the 60-year-old and partly resold them to undercover officers, with help from a 35-year-old man. The judgment against the 60-year-old has not yet become final.