Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said in a statement that it wanted to "clarify" information provided by one of its top officials, according to which weapons delivered to Ukraine have ended up with criminals in Finland and other countries.
In an Yle interview published on Sunday, NBI Detective Superintendent Christer Ahlgren said that the central criminal police agency had "intelligence-based indications" of weapons ending up in the hands of criminals in Finland.
"We have signs that these weapons are already in Finland," Ahlgren said in the interview.
On Monday, Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a statement claiming that "information that weapons supplied to Ukraine by various countries were found in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands, as if it ended up in the hands of criminal gangs" was Russian disinformation.
Markus Välimäki, Deputy Director of the NBI, responded with a clarification that Finnish police have no evidence that weapons supplied as part of military aid to Ukraine have been smuggled from the country into Finland.
In the earlier Yle interview, Ahlgren did not specifically refer to military aid, but more vaguely about the weapons that had been delivered to Ukraine.
The NBI said on Monday that the perception "that weapons donated to Ukraine are being trafficked to members of organised crime in Finland is not accurate," adding that "police have no evidence showing that donated weapons would have been smuggled from Ukraine to Finland".
"We don't know that weapons supplied to Ukraine would have ended up in the hands of criminals in Finland," Välimäki declared. "We have indications that are being investigated. These references are based on intelligence information, which is not possible to further explain or identify at this point."
The official statement does not directly deny or confirm the comments by Ahlgren, the head of the NBI's organised crime intelligence unit.
Välimäki: "I am not going to change anything or add anything"
In the interview, Ahlgren said that weapons delivered to Ukraine have also been found in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands.
According to Välimäki, the NBI has indications of this based on intelligence information, but he declined to go into detail about the matter.
"Our expert has commented in this manner, and I am not going to change anything or add anything to it," Välimäki told Yle. "In my interpretation, this is more of an expert opinion based on intelligence information."
Välimäki also emphasised that NBI's intelligence data does not indicate any large-scale phenomenon.
"There is no reason to worry," he told Yle.
According to Välimäki, the NBI also does not want to give the impression that it believes that Ukrainian authorities had somehow allowed weapons to end up in the wrong hands.
"Organised crime is extremely agile in situations where they can get weapons. So it's about them being capable of it, rather than Ukrainian authorities somehow enabling it," he said.
Weapons from conflict zones ending up in the wrong hands is a common phenomenon that the NBI monitors closely, Välimäki noted.