Female defendant, 20, wept after being convicted of importing “most powerful weapons seen in the hands of UK criminals”.

Islington Gazette: Alexander MullingsAlexander Mullings (Image: Archant)

A gunrunning couple who tried to import powerful submachine guns – as featured in The Dark Knight and Matrix movies – into the UK using Parcelforce face a long stretch behind bars.

Alexander Mullings, originally from Islington, was already in prison when he mastermind the plan to bring the rapid fire, semi-automatic Skorpion weapons to London criminals from Germany.

Three of the guns – described by a senior trident officer as “some of the most dangerous weapons ever seen reach the hands of UK criminals” – were seized last year, but five more packages are known to have been delivered before police smashed the scheme.

Mullings and his girlfriend Emily Ciantar, 20, of Hillmarton Road, Holloway, were found guilty at the Old Bailey of conspiring to possess firearms with intent to endanger life while co-defendant Spencer Inglis, of Anerley Road, Mitcham, who took delivery of one of the guns, was found guilty of possessing a prohibited weapon.

Islington Gazette: Deadly: The couple imported Skorpion submachine guns, similar to those seen in the Matrix and Dark Knight moviesDeadly: The couple imported Skorpion submachine guns, similar to those seen in the Matrix and Dark Knight movies (Image: PA Archive/Press Association Images)

Two other defendants – Sarah Anderson, of Whistler Street, Highbury, and Joseph MacGillivray, of Woodstock Road, Finsbury Park – were cleared of conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life.

The court had heard how Mullings, 23, secretly masterminded the plot while serving eight years for robbery.

Ciantar arrived at Inglis’ home by minicab and handed over the Skorpion and 74 rounds of ammunition just hours before police, who had been watching the house, raided it.

The second machine gun was recovered after it was intercepted in the post.

The package, which also contained two empty magazine clips and 100 rounds of ammunition, was intended to go to an address in Finsbury Park, the court was told.

Police intercepted a third package containing a Skorpion, three magazine clips but no ammunition in June last year at a international postal hub in Coventry.

All the defendants had denied involvement in the plot.

Mullings told jurors he was acting under duress to protect his girlfriend Ciantar from a man identified in court only as “Mr X” who was demanding drugs money from her.

Ciantar, 20, initially denied being the person in the minicab but subsequently changed her story and claimed she was delivering drugs.

She was identified in photos found on her mobile phone of a person holding a Zoraki handgun by an a tattoo on her wrist.

All the guns were deactivated weapons that the supplier had reactivated.

The plotters are thought to have paid two to three thousand pounds for the guns, but they would have had a street value much higher.

Det Ch Insp Rebecca Reeves, of Operation Trident, said: “These types of firearms are some of the most dangerous weapons I have ever seen reach the hands of UK criminals.”

Ciantar was led down to the cells weeping loudly before the judge David Farrell adjourned sentencing until February 26.