Albanian police seized a large amount of weapons, including automatic rifles and a grenade launcher, from the pretender to the Balkan country's throne when he returned home after 63 years in exile.
The weapons were seized yesterday when Leka I arrived at Tirana's Mother Teresa airport after flying in from South Africa, accompanied by family members and a staff that includes two armed Zulu guards and a British army major.
Police director Bilbil Mema said the weapons belonging to Leka, known as a gun aficionado, were found in 11 cases and included an anti-tank grenade launcher and a mortar.
"Police have seized 84 weapons Leka brought along. A group of experts has verified, up to now, that nine are Kalashnikovs (automatic rifles) but there are also old relics," Mema told Reuters.
As Kalashnikovs are considered military weapons in Albania, Leka will not get them back, he said. Mema did not say whether Leka may face legal consequences. Other arms were trophy guns and would be handed back, he said.
Local media said Leka's staff had declared the weapons when leaving South Africa. His spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Leka I, son of Albania's King Zog who ruled from 1928 to 1939, is the latest European royal figure to return to a turbulent homeland and, possibly, play some prominent role in its future.
It was his third, and final, return since Albania threw off communism in 1990. He was kicked out from Albania as a baby in 1939 by Mussolini's occupying Italians.
When he lost a referendum to restore the monarchy in 1997, Leka, angry at the result, marched down Tirana's main boulevard in military fatigues, with grenades and pistols around the waist.
One supporter fired a shot in the air and in the fusillade this set off, a young man was killed.
Leka, crowned King by his supporters in Paris in 1961 after his father's death, left a few days later for South Africa and was sentenced in absentia to a suspended jail term that was pardoned by parliament in an amnesty last month.