Alarms over nuclear smuggling were raised on Wednesday night when Slovakian police announced that three men had been arrested in Slovakia and Hungary after allegedly trying to sell radioactive material.
Slovak police said yesterday that the radioactive material was enriched uranium which could have been used to make a dirty bomb.
The suspects, two Hungarians and a Ukrainian, were peddling material enriched enough to be used in a radiological ``dirty bomb,'' Slovak authorities said.
Slovak Police Vice President Michal Kopcik said the three suspects, who were arrested on Wednesday afternoon, were peddling just under 500g of uranium in powder form that investigators believe came from somewhere in the former Soviet Union. "It was possible to use it in various ways for terrorist attacks," Kopcik told reporters.
Two of the suspects were arrested in eastern Slovakia, and the third was arrested in Hungary, Korch said. The suspects were not identified.
Slovakian police told journalists that the authorities in Slovakia and Hungary had been monitoring the activities of the alleged nuclear traders for several months before arresting them.
Western officials have been concerned for years about the risk of nuclear smuggling from the former Soviet Union, although US-funded safeguarding programs have been effective in reducing the danger of nuclear trading.
Eastern Slovakia's border with Ukraine is the EU's easternmost frontier, and authorities have spent millions tightening security in the past few years, fearing terrorists or organized crime syndicates could smuggle weapons, explosives and other contraband into the EU.
Slovakian and Hungarian police worked together on the case for several months, Korch said.
He would not say how long the suspects were under surveillance, or detail how they were arrested and to whom they were trying to sell the material.
Hungary's National Bureau of Investigation had no comment on Wednesday.
Erich Tomas, a spokesman for the Slovak Interior Ministry, said he had no information about the case.
The US embassy in Bratislava also had no immediate comment.
There have been concerns that Eastern Europe could be a source of radioactive material for a so-called "dirty bomb," which would use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive debris. Experts say such a weapon would frighten far more people than it would harm.
Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said the UN nuclear watchdog would be following up on the case.
"It will be important to determine whether the material in question is nuclear," Fleming said.
The agency reported in August that there were more than 250 reported thefts or losses of nuclear material around the world last year.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
RSS