MARCH 2001 : (COLUMBIA : POLICE SEARCH HOME OF SANDOVAL; FIND 600 GRAMS OF ENRICHED URANIUM) The Bogota police in March searched the house of Alfonso Sandoval, an animal feed salesman, in a suburb of Bogota and found 600 grams of highly enriched uranium, possibly from Russian nuclear submarine fuel. The material is suitable for use in a nuclear weapon.
The police had been following Sandoval for two months when they searched his house for illegal substances. In a back room they found a computer, a spectrometer for measuring the purity of radioactive substances and two lead canisters filled with uranium. Geologists with Geiger counters accompanied the police and found that the house was severely contaminated with radioactivity.
Sandoval was arrested but later released on bail because he had suffered four heart attacks in December followed by an open-heart surgery and police was concerned about his health. Sandoval later appeared on television claiming that he had just stumbled across the uranium. The police however found in his computer detailed information about uranium enrichment processes and assumed that he was part of an international smuggling gang. ...
One of the two canisters contained uranium enriched to 63%, the other was 74% enriched. According to Colombian authorities, the 600 grams were said to be worth just over GBP 1 million (US$1.4 million) at the local market. The level of enrichment corresponds to the standard used in Russian nuclear submarines and icebreakers. Nuclear weapons mostly contain uranium enriched to over 90%, but a nuclear bomb can also be made with uranium of lower enrichment. According to the Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), one could in theory even make a bomb with 10% enriched uranium.
Whether Sandoval did purchase the material in Russia is not clear. He did visit Russia in February 2000 for unknown reasons. - "Colombia: Highly enriched uranium confiscated," published by WISE News Communique on May 11, 2001, WISE Amsterdam, http://www.antenna.nl/wise/548/5271.html.