On 28 June 2017, an arms theft at a military base in Tancos, Portugal was discovered. The stolen weapons reportedly included 1,450 9 mm caliber cartridges, 150

hand grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...

s, 44

anti-tank grenade An anti-tank grenade is a specialized hand-thrown grenade used to defeat armored targets. Although their inherently short range limits the usefulness of grenades, troops can lie in ambush or maneuver under cover to exploit the limited outward vis ...

s, 18 tear gas grenades, 264 units of plastic explosives, and 102 explosive charges. Following an anonymous tip-off, some of the weapons were found in

Chamusca Chamusca () is a municipality in Santarém District in Portugal. The population in 2021 was 8,530, in an area of 746.01 km². The present Mayor is Paulo Queimado, elected by the Socialist Party (Portugal), Socialist Party. The municipal holi ...

on 18 October 2017. An investigation into the recovery of the weapons led to the September 2018 arrests of six military officials from the National Republican Guard and the Military Judicial Police (PJM), including the head of the PJM,

Coronel Luís Augusto Vieira Coronel may refer to: * Archaic and Spanish variant of colonel * Coronel, Chile, a port city in Chile * Battle of Coronel off the Chilean coast during World War I * The World War II German auxiliary cruiser HSK ''Coronel'', see German night fight ...

. Amid accusations of a military cover-up of the arms theft, Minister of National Defence José Alberto Azeredo Lopes resigned on 12 October 2018. Azeredo Lopes has denied any involvement in the alleged cover-up.

References

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