You encounter a vehicle containing plutonium and you tell them to just turn around and go back?!?!?
Georgian customs officers sent a car carrying a mixture of plutonium and beryllium back to Azerbaijan after foiling an attempt to smuggle the materials over the border, Georgian television reported on Tuesday.Customs officials found the materials, which can be used in nuclear bombs, in what appeared to be a routine customs check as the car was driven over the border from Azerbaijan, the Imedi television station reported.
"Georgian customs detected a high level of radiation while checking one of the cars," Imedi reported. "They discovered plutonium-beryllium."
There were scant details about the find.
The car was sent back to Azerbaijan although smuggling nuclear materials is a crime under Georgian law. It was unclear if Azeri authorities had been informed.
"The decision to send it back was made," Soso Kakushadze, head of the environment ministry's radiation department, told Reuters.
"It was the right decision as it would have been very expensive to keep it in Georgia and special conditions are needed," he said.
Reports did not indicate where the plutonium and beryllium was from. Interior ministry officials declined to comment.
Plutonium is used in most nuclear weapons, but several kilograms are needed to make even a primitive atomic bomb.
Beryllium, a toxic metal, can be used to form a neutron initiator that triggers a nuclear explosion. It can be used to moderate nuclear reactions.
Georgian special services foiled an attempt by a Russian citizen to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1 million in Georgia in February 2006.
Radioactive materials were used to generate power in remote areas in Soviet times but during the chaos that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union many devices were abandoned.
Border Guard: Anything to declare?
Driver: Just 5 cartons of cigarettes and a couple cases of plutonium and beryllium.
Border Guard: Sorry but we’ve got to confiscate the cigarettes.
Guess they already have their own supply.
Well, it is a stronger stance than what would have been done at our border.
Maybe they wanted to see where the car would go once it went back?
Most likely, the car had a device with a small neutron source, like a nuclear gage of some sort. Some lead detectors have sources in them.
They may have been sent back because they didn’t have the paperwork exactly right. The border folks would have no authority to seize a commercial source.
When you want neutrons, you mix Pu and Be (most likely Pu238, used as an alpha source, it cannot be used in a nuke) and neutrons come out. Nicknamed PuBe sources.
PuBe sources are not too dangerous, but if you had a sensitive nuke detector at a border, you’d pick up the neutrons coming from it. The common ones are safer than a source used for weld radiography, for instance.
Journalists should learn a little science; on the other hand it’s hard to scare people with hysterical articles if you look stuff up first. Just putting the word plutonium up gets a reaction from folks.
Here is a patent that makes use of either a PuBe source, or AmBe, for borehole neutron activation logging. Lots of N borehole loggers use a neutron generating tube, this patent is for a borehole logger that uses an isotope source.
Plutonium is it? Well, my mine produces uranium, so it wasn’t my stuff. That beryllium is tough, too, although I don’t know that it is particularly thermonuclear.
Um - that completely overlooks the "expense" of allowing them to bring it in at some other point and time under the "special conditions" of terrorists! Reminds me of Freddie Prinze character who said, "It's not my job, man!" Unbelievable!
Georgian Border Police said on Tuesday that it had detected radioactive emissions from scrap metal in a truck on the Georgian-Azerbaijani border on June 15.So it wasn't a shipment of plutonium, but neither was it a legitimate device that happened to contain plutonium. Left unexplained is how well-pipe might have been contaminated with Pu. Perhaps somebody stashed some Pu down a well at some point? The lack of open interest by the authorities is interestingTbilisi-based Imedi TV reported on June 19 that the Georgian Border Police had detected nuclear materials – a mixture of plutonium and beryllium – in a truck coming from Azerbaijan. The truck was sent back to Azerbaijan.
The Border Police, however, stressed in a statement that only very small traces had been detected on the scrap metal during a routine customs check.
“The truck was carrying different types of scrap metal. It was driven by a Georgian citizen. He had all the necessary documents. Radiation emissions were detected on one of the metal pipes in the cargo. Pipes of this kind are usually used for wells,” the Border Police said.
It also said that it had informed relevant agencies within the Interior Ministry and Ministry of Environment, which then studied the case and jointly decided to send the truck with its cargo back to Azerbaijan.
“Our Azerbaijani colleagues have been informed,” the Border Police said.
Either Laurel and Hardey are in charge of Border Security in Georgia, or they’ve been consulting with President Bush and Tony Snowman.
This reminds me of Snowman’s interview with Hannity earlier this week:
Hannity: “...but Tony, they had plutonium and berylium! Why didn’t you confiscate it!”
Snowman: “Look Sean, I love you, but you just can’t go around confiscating nuclear material at the border. The previous border security law had no such provisions. And anyways, the Border Patrol folks did not have the proper forms. But we got some really cool photos from the Global Hawk we now have patroling that sector.”