Posted on 04/19/2016 2:20:42 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
Authorities in the former Soviet state of Georgia have arrested six people for trying to sell $200 million worth of uranium, Reuters reports.
"Officers of Georgia's State Security Service detained three citizens of Armenia and three citizens of Georgia," Savle Motiashvili, a security service investigator, told reporters. "The members of the group were planning to sell the nuclear material, uranium-238, for $200 million when they were detained."
He did not elaborate on the origin of the uranium nor whether there was an intended purchaser.
The six suspects could receive up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
.....
Georgia has seen several instances of people trying to sell radioactive material since the fall of the Soviet Union. The most high-profile case occurred in 2006, when a man attempted to sell weapons-grade uranium to radical Islamists for a million dollars. He was caught and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
Parenthetically, why does Georgia have weapons-grade uranium in the first place?
It reminds me of another incident where there was a sting operation on some organized crime figures in Moldova who were caught trying to sell radiocative material to whom they thought were ISIS. Moldova is just where it happened, their nationalities in that case, were not Moldovans as I recall.
They figgered it’d spice up the ‘shine.
“Parenthetically, why does Georgia have weapons-grade uranium in the first place? “
About ten years ago a Russian/American friend got her mother in Moscow an ambulance ride and through the back door of a hospital in front of the queue for x-rays...for a bribe totaling $20US. Can you imagine how many ways that money got split? The ordinary people in the former Soviet Union are desperately poor.
I couldn’t find any evidence of nuclear power in Georgia. However, drugs manufactured in Columbia are sold by the train car load in the USA. A few pounds of uranium should be easier to smuggle than a boatload of cocaine.
One of the problems of incredibly valuable nuclear weapons or nuclear material in desperately poor places like Russia or Pakistan, is that at some point the rightful owner is trusting a few peasants to keep it safe.
A relative living in a guarded compound in the Philippines said, “Having guards 24 hours simply restricts the thievery to those thieves related to the guards.” I suspect that guarding nuclear materials in poor countries is much the same.
Back when the Berlin wall fell down, they should have shipped all fissile material to secure locations within Russia, not left it lying around former republics. I thought that was what they had done.
Just put them in a small room with $200mm worth of Uranium for a few hours. That'll teach 'em!
Exactly how much is $200 million worth of 236, anyway? Enough to get to critical mass?
That was my question. Whatever happened to who, what, where and why?
“Back when the Berlin wall fell down, they should have shipped all fissile material to secure locations within Russia, not left it lying around former republics. I thought that was what they had done.”
The collapse of the Soviet Union was pure chaos. There was no planning and no control over anything. The mechanisms that might have kept control broke as everybody scrambled to grab a piece of the pie for themselves. Soldiers guarding nuclear weapons went unpaid for months and had to go hunting for food, leaving their missiles unguarded while they did so.
They have been banished as they were the product of the hate mongering imperial racist, Rudyard Kipling.
“I Keep Six Honest
Serving Men ...”
I KEEP six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small—
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes—
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!
The Elephant’s Child
Because of the influx of New Yorkers into Florida?
Of course, no way no how did these WMD ever end up in the hands of terrorists./s I’m amazed they haven’t detonated one yet! F@#$! Iraq, Iran and NK were just the most visible suspects.
All of them named Tommy Adkins, I presume.
;-) That was the image that first popped into my head.
“Parenthetically, why does Georgia have weapons-grade uranium in the first place?”
U-238 isn’t weapons-grade anything (except for DU rounds where the density matters). It must be converted to plutonium by neutron bombardment to be bomb material.
If one refines uranium ore the result is mostly U-238.
Locally, needle tipped bullets for those rapid fire tank killers are machined from U238. they are 30 calibre I believe
"Nuclear material"???
Yeah, it's radioactive. Barely. This is otherwise known as "depleted uranium". We make bullets and aircraft balancing weights out of it.
Cost, bulk: $9 per 100gThat makes the cost of bulk U-238 $90/kg. So, $200,000,000 worth is over 2,200 tons worth on the open market.
One kilogram of uranium-235 has the capacity to produce as much energy as 1,500,000 kilograms (1,500 tonnes) of coal.Plutonium is about the same energy density. We need more nuclear power plants, and the US has a strategic need for at least one plutonium-producing breeder reactor. At the moment we have no way of producing plutonium, or nuclear weapon pits (the core component).
“they are 30 calibre I believe”
They are 30 mm, a bit over an inch in diameter.
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