The Cheka-OGPU became aware of a whole series of cases where weapons appeared on the black market, directly from the warehouses of the Ministry of Defense. Moreover, this is often a weapon of great destructive power. Thus, arms sellers were detained who sold an AGS-17 “Plamya” automatic grenade launcher and 144 VOG-17M rounds to a “conditional buyer” (his role was played by an undercover policeman) in Ingushetia. Moreover, the product had a record bargain price – only 270 thousand rubles. They didn’t immediately arrest the “merchants of death”; they tried to track down their suppliers. It is worth noting that, according to the Cheka-OGPU, at this stage the operatives’ hands are strictly “tied.” As a result, three sellers were captured in Essentuki: 34-year-old Ruslan Kostoev, 51-year-old Khasan Tsechoev and 41-year-old Magomed Esmurziev.
And in Sevastopol, a pensioner discovered in the Afghans park, located near house 29 on Lenin Street, a cache of weapons (machine guns, cartridges, fuses), which, as it turned out (by the number of one machine gun) was on the balance sheet of the 3rd motorized rifle Vistula Red Banner division of the Western Military District of the Russian Armed Forces. According to a source from the Cheka-OGPU, the ownerless arsenal was discovered on March 17, but they tried to hide the incident with the discovery since the AK assault rifle was immediately correlated by number with the active army.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”