[bbfan1991]

A man in New Mexico has found a loaded handgun inside a box of frozen beef.

The supermarket employee from Roswell found the .38 calibre super semi automatic handgun - loaded with seven rounds of ammunition - on Wednesday (December 5)

According to NBC News, the man came across the firearm while unpacking meat that had been shipped from Colorado. He later handed the weapon in to Roswell Police Department.

Authorities do not know where the gun came from and unfortunately the worker wiped the gun clean before passing it onto police, eliminating any fingerprints. A National Crime Information Centre database search is also said to have failed to reveal further clues relating to its origins.

Initial investigations revealed that the meat was packaged over a year ago, but continued searches for its owner or possible criminal usage in several other law enforcement databases could take months.

"You hear of people finding frogs in their salad or weird stuff like that, but [I'd] never heard of [anything like] this one," said Sabrina Morales from Roswell Police's PR Department.