Outcry as border guards seize British 'dirty bomb' lorry heading for Iran

Daily Mail U.K. ^ | 22:00pm 22nd July 2006 | By JASON LEWIS,

[BlueJ7]

Border guards seized a British lorry on its way to make a delivery to the Iranian military - after discovering it was packed with radioactive material that could be used to build a dirty bomb.

[SubMareener]

Looks as if the Bulgarians are really on their toes!

[Cindy]

ON THE NET...

INTELLIGENCE-SUMMIT.blogspot.com - "ILLEGAL SHIPMENT OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL TO IRAN SEIZED IN BULGARIA" (July 21, 2006)

Re Bulgaria - Related Article (July 19, 2006)

[oyez]

Wonder how many trucks has gotten through before now.

[Gorzaloon]

"Americium-beryllium is an extremely effective element for the construction of a dirty bomb as it has a very long half-life, "

Journalist Science Flunkout TWIT.

That's a %^&(*)(_ NEUTRON SOURCE_. It has nothing to do with its smoke-detector halflife.

It's much worse than that. Fast neutrons can kick plentiful and cheap Th232 to yield lots of nasty isotopes, for just one example.

[Quark606]

It was British?

[PajamaTruthMafia]

In August last year there was a similar incident when a Turkish truck carrying a ton of zirconium silicate supplied by a British firm was stopped by Bulgarian customs at the Turkish border on its way to Tehran, after travelling from Britain, through Germany and Romania, without being stopped.

Zirconium is used in nuclear reactors to stop fuel rods corroding and can also be used as part of a nuclear warhead. The metal can be extracted from zirconium silicate and its trade is usually tightly controlled.

WTF?!

[hatfieldmccoy]

Hmmm.. Is this a strange story or what? the Brits didn't seem to be to forthcoming about which "British company: (hello murdering jihadist front company. The story has a certain " what me worry?" flavor.

[nuconvert]

"Last night a DTI spokesman confirmed: "Exporters do not need a licence to transport this sort of material to Iran. It is not covered by our export controls."

Oh good

[bboop]

Hoooeeeey. My husband works with those soil-testers here in the US. He said they are highly controlled here.

[Dallas59]

A "Lorrey"

[satchmodog9]

I hope they were not profiling. Sarcasm off.

[AliVeritas]

This may be a dumb question... why would Britain be way over there to get something to Iran?

[Wuli]

These deals are never done via an officially direct approach from the receiving government/client. There is alwatys at least one or two middlemen/trading companies in the country of origin between the OEM and the foriegn buyer. So my guess is the "U.K" company that sold the goods was first approached by a "U.K" company representing the potential buyer.

One should look into just who are the investors in the companies in the U.K. that were involved - the company that sold the devices and the trading company that brokered the deal to the Iranian government.

Great Britain has become the dominant country for Middle East financiers and investors in Europe and Iran is the sixth largest export client for Britain.

[SE Mom]

Well..as we all know..there are LOTS of terrorists in the UK..home-grown and otherwise. I didn't see the NAME of the "British company"..but it could certainly be a ghost company...it's a pretty alarming story I think.

[SE Mom]

bttt

[shield]

bttt

[Cindy]

Thanks.
It's interesting.

[MarkL]

These deals are never done via an officially direct approach from the receiving government/client. There is alwatys at least one or two middlemen/trading companies in the country of origin between the OEM and the foriegn buyer. So my guess is the "U.K" company that sold the goods was first approached by a "U.K" company representing the potential buyer.

And the way this is stopped is when the people who are the middle-men begin to disappear, or have certain "accidents."

Mark