By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis – Federal authorities in the Metro East say they've seized a record number of machine guns, silencers and explosives from several homes in the Alton area.
On Tuesday, prosecutors unsealed indictments of 11 people on federal weapons charges.
Andy Anderson with the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said agents seized more than 50 machine guns.
"These weapons range from AK-47s to Uzi machine guns to Thompson machine guns, to the old belt-fed machine guns," Anderson said.
Anderson said authorities also took away ammunition, grenades and other explosives.
Ten of the 11 people have been arrested. One remains at large.
Authorities did not mention any motive, though U.S. Attorney Ronald Tenpas says racist literature was found with some of the weapons.