Early this week, we read about news reports coming from South America in which FAL rifles from the Paraguayan Police were stolen, part of a big cache of firearms stolen from the Headquarters of the Department Armaments and Munitions of the National Police. Airsofters started sharing the story as reports say that they were replaced by airsoft replicas to avoid suspicion that they real FN FAL rifles were missing.

The FN FAL Rifles were made in Brazil and are in storage in Capiatá, southeast of the country’s capital, Asuncion. The missing now number to be 44 with 90 more small arms also reported. According to Ultimahora.com the technicians conducting the inspection of the rifles presume that they were airsoft FN FAL rifles.

ABC.com, a news site based in Asuncion, tweeted a photo of one of the replicas used to replace the stolen ones:

Roban 42 fusiles de guerra que estaban resguardados en un cuartel policial y lo reemplazan por réplicas de juguete. https://t.co/FP6xCO3F6n pic.twitter.com/ukoXoUnlDY

— ABC Digital (@ABCDigital) 25 August 2018

The BBC reports that police officer in charge was replaced but no arrests were made and that the inspections were made when the rifles started appearing in the black market, and they can fetch up to US$10,000 with some ending up in Argentina and Brazil as these countries share a border with the landlocked South American country.

The FN FAL is widely used rifle, which initially served the armed forces of NATO members and allies during the Cold War that it earned the “The right arm of the Free World” title and which you can find in morale patches that show the FN FAL rifle. It is still much in use in militaries in Africa and South America. It has many variations to meet the requirements of clients such as the British L1A1 SLR, which is a licensed version of the FN FAL so it can use Imperial Units rather than the SI or Metric System.

As always in airsoft, speculations will be what airsoft brand the thieves use to replace the stolen ones. Most probably they acquired used or discarded airsoft FN FALs that look to be functional at first glance. Star Airsoft when it was existing, produced an L1A1 SLR. Ares Airsoft (pictured above) and King Arms also produce L1A1 AEGs. Jing Gong/ASP produces some FN FAL variants as well.

Nevertheless, even if the airsoft guns used in the heist are brand new, if each of the real ones were sold at the maximum black market value of US$10,000, then perpetrators got many times more than their initial investment.