Bogota Police Foil 'Atom Bomb' Sale
Matthew Campbell
The Sunday Times (UK)
April 29 2001
DETECTIVES in Colombia say they have seized a £1m cache of enriched uranium from the bathroom of an animal feed salesman who claims he merely found some radioactive ore on his farm. The police believe they have foiled an international gang that planned to build and sell nuclear weapons.
While tests were being conducted on the uranium to try to help determine its origin, Bogota police and an FBI team expected to arrive in the city this week said they were alarmed at the prospect of a black market in atom bombs.
"What is certain," said Ismael Malaver, the detective in charge of the team that raided Alfonso Sandoval's suburban house, "is that he was planning to sell it."
Sandoval is thought to have been using a makeshift bathroom laboratory to measure the enrichment of the uranium before he marketed it abroad.
The case has raised disturbing questions about the extent of nuclear proliferation, which has been a nightmare for security agencies since the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago. Experts believe that Colombia, with its reputation as a lawless haven for guerrilla and criminal gangs, may be the secret bazaar where pariah nations such as Iraq try to acquire uranium smuggled out of Russia.
So far there has been no evidence of large-scale smuggling of Russia's uranium. "Small amounts get out," said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "But it is difficult for organised crime to find anyone able to get out the larger amounts that are needed for making weapons."
Colombian officials have no doubt that the uranium they discovered in two canisters in Sandoval's bathroom was destined for use in weapons and suggest it could have been a sample for tempting potential buyers.
Even so Sandoval, 56, seemed an unlikely component of such a sinister plot. His daughter Claudia said from Bogota that he had suffered four heart attacks in December and he has been released on bail because of concerns about his health.
"We're not bandits," she said. "My father has always been a scientist with interests. Nothing clandestine. He's always done experiments. He has produced home-made shampoo, soap and detergent."
Colombian investigators scoffed at the notion of an amateur scientist experimenting with uranium for fun. In the bathroom they found a computer and a spectrometer for measuring the purity of radioactive elements as well as the two 11oz batches of uranium. One batch, they claimed, was enriched to 63%, the other to 74%.
After his release, the unassuming Sandoval appeared on television claiming he had stumbled across the uranium. But natural uranium has to be treated to reach the level of enrichment attributed to the batches found in the bathroom.
Even that level is not sufficient for making weapons, which require uranium enriched to at least 90%. It corresponds, however, to the standard of enrichment used in Russian nuclear submarines and icebreakers. Police say Sandoval visited Russia for unknown reasons in February last year.
He was not the first Colombian to be detained for possession of nuclear materials. In Frankfurt in 1994, a Colombian was arrested coming from Moscow with a consignment of plutonium in his suitcase. This turned out to be a sting by German intelligence.
A series of other arrests over the past few years in Italy, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Germany involved only small amounts of low-grade radioactive materials. "Most of it is uranium at 2-3% coming from the former Soviet Union," said David Kyd, spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna. "But it is hard to know whether what is found is the tip of the iceberg or the bulk of the traffic."
The Bogota find was the first of its kind in Latin America, but experts are not surprised that Colombia - where smugglers of drugs, arms and emeralds operate with virtual impunity - should emerge as a player in the uranium trade. "That is the place to sell stuff on the black market," said Albright.
Colombian criminal links with Russian mafia groups were revealed in 1999 when officials discovered a half-finished Russian submarine in a warehouse hundreds of miles from the coast. The craft was being assembled by Russian engineers for cocaine-smuggling.
Kyd said that the Bogota haul might indicate that "the Colombia mafia is diversifying to the extent that it is introducing uranium into its sales brochure".
Fissile material would be useless without the sophisticated detonation technology needed for building a bomb. However, this expertise is readily available and technical information on the internet has increased the chance of a lone operator being able to build a basic nuclear bomb.
BTW, don't sweat it....can't stop it if it happens and no-one knows where yet if it does.....Enjoy your night, spend time with your family/friends and watch out for the "little terror(ists)" tonight in your area.....
Got to go...I'm keeping up with little ghosts and goblins that have invaded my neighborhood....
NeverGore