A gang have been locked up for a combined 79 years after guns were made out of blank firing replicas in Nottinghamshire. Andrew Wheelhouse ran a workshop in a garage at his home in Mansfield Woodhouse where he converted replica pistols into viable guns and then transported them.
The 41-year-old was arrested when armed police officers searched his address in Marples Avenue, on July 6, 2021. During the search they found 15 blank firearms, around 40 blank cartridges, an adapted lathe and drill press which could be used in the process of converting firearms, and metal shavings on and near the tools.
Investigators rumbled a wider criminal enterprise, with group members communicating with each other, and found that blank-firing guns were being turned into live-firing weapons before being moved to an address in Canver Close, Bilborough. Thirty-year-old Mitch Butterworth and 29-year-old Amraiz Mahmood were then involved in moving the weapons.
