For sale: ‘dirty bomb’ material

The Sunday Times (U.K.) ^ | 06/22/03 | Michael Sheridan

[Pokey78]

AN international hunt is under way for up to 130lb of radioactive material — suitable for use in a terrorist “dirty bomb” — that brokers are trying to sell to the highest bidder in southeast Asia.

Police and intelligence officials from Thailand and several western powers are helping to track down the caesium-137, which is said to be stored in neighbouring Laos.

The search follows the arrest in Bangkok on June 13 of a Thai headmaster, Narong Penanam, 44, who tried to sell 62lb of the material for £150,000 to undercover Thai police working with American agents. Western officials and nuclear experts were shocked at the amount seized.

The caesium, stored in metal casing, is said to have come from the former Soviet republic of Latvia. It formed part of a cache of 194lb smuggled out of the collapsing Soviet empire to Laos, whose communist rulers were cold war allies of the Kremlin.

A Thai intelligence informant has reportedly said that the remaining 130lb are at a military camp 16 miles from the Lao capital, Vientiane. Diplomats said “strong representations” were being made to the Lao government.

Landlocked, poor and secretive, Laos is a nexus for drug trafficking. Its rulers are not suspected of sympathy for terrorism but have a reputation for corruption. “This is criminal opportunism, not a sinister plot,” said a western diplomat. “They may not grasp how dangerous it is.”

Thai police and western sources said there was no evidence to link Narong to Islamic militants or terrorism. “He is only a broker looking for a commission,” said Lieutenant-General Chaj Kuladilok of the police investigation division.

Suspicions are growing among western officials that corrupt military officers in Thailand and Laos have been connected with several efforts to sell the caesium. Chanak Charoenruk, an air marshal in the Royal Thai Air Force who died in 2001, took a sample of the caesium to the country’s atomic energy agency for testing three years ago.

“My husband was asked by an intermediary to check this substance and he took it for testing,” said his widow, Prapai Charoenruk. “He told me there was a total of (194lb), it had come from the Russian nuclear programme and it had decayed considerably.”

Caesium-137 could be used with conventional explosives to produce a “dirty bomb”, a threat MI5 has warned of.

Additional reporting: Anchalee Romruen

[Cindy]

"AN international hunt is under way for up to 130lb of radioactive material — suitable for use in a terrorist “dirty bomb” — that brokers are trying to sell to the highest bidder in southeast Asia. Police and intelligence officials from Thailand and several western powers are helping to track down the caesium-137, which is said to be stored in neighbouring Laos. The search follows the arrest in Bangkok on June 13 of a Thai headmaster, Narong Penanam, 44, who tried to sell 62lb of the material for £150,000 to undercover Thai police working with American agents. Western officials and nuclear experts were shocked at the amount seized. The caesium, stored in metal casing, is said to have come from the former Soviet republic of Latvia. It formed part of a cache of 194lb smuggled out of the collapsing Soviet empire to Laos, whose communist rulers were cold war allies of the Kremlin. A Thai intelligence informant has reportedly said that the remaining 130lb are at a military camp 16 miles from the Lao capital, Vientiane. Diplomats said “strong representations” were being made to the Lao government."

YAHOO! News (AP): "'DIRTY BOMB' MATERIALS SEIZED IN GEORGIA" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Tedo Mokeliya was detained May 31 after police in this former Soviet republic discovered two containers holding cesium-137 and strontium in his taxi, said Givi Mgebrishvili, chief of the Interior Ministry's main criminal investigation department. Cesium and strontium, which have medical and industrial applications, also are considered likely ingredients for a so-called "dirty bomb," in which conventional explosives are combined with radioactive material. Police also found a dark brown liquid later determined to be nerve gas concentrate, Mgebrishvili said. No other details were immediately available.") (June 16, 2003) (Read More...) (Note: This URL will expire.)