IZHEVSK, January 16 - RAPSI. The police opened a criminal case regarding the sale of 79 AK-47 assault rifles to a village resident, Udmurtia Republic Interior Minister Alexander Pervukhin told journalists on Monday.

"Police opened a criminal case," said Pervukhin without specifying what charge.

The wooden chests with the assault rifles were brought to the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant (Izhmash) for scraping. However the chests were allegedly taken from the plant by a staff driver on January 12 as he thought they were empty. The driver said he was going to throw the chests on a dump site, but then sold them to a local resident as firewood. The buyer found the weapons inside the chests and called police.

Police is now looking for more potentially dangerous items disposed by Izhmash at the dump site, a source in the Udmurt law enforcement agencies earlier told RIA Novosti.