Police in Leipzig lost one of their machine guns Thursday evening and were still trying to find it Friday afternoon, local media reported.
The weapon went missing while officers were responding to reports of a robbery at a petrol station in the Grünau district, in the west of the city, around 9:30 p.m., according to local paper Die Leipziger Volkszeitung.
A police car rushed to the scene after receiving an emergency call and the officers realized only later that the gun had vanished, the newspaper reported. The incident involved three teenagers who threatened a cashier with a box-cutter, before fleeing with two bottles of lemonade.
A police spokesman first announced that a piece of equipment was missing, before later explaining the item in question was a MP5-model gun, produced by Heckler & Koch.
The newspaper reported that an ammunition magazine had been found by a passer-by, but the weapon had not been located by Friday afternoon. The spokesman was quoted as saying there is no ammunition in the gun.
“We are leaving no stone unturned from the police station to the petrol station,” the spokesman said of the search, adding that police are not yet assuming the MP5 had been stolen.
Elsewhere, an army rifle was reported stolen this week in the city of Paphos, Cyprus, the Cyprus Mail reported. The G3-model weapon, along with 200 rounds and five ammunition magazines, was taken from a home while the owner was abroad. Assault rifles are issued to National Guard reservists and are supposed to be kept in a safe place at home, the Cyprus Mail reported.