Posted on 08/16/2005 5:20:01 AM PDT by NativeNewYorker
Ankara (dpa) - Turkish police have arrested and charged two people with attempting to smuggle nuclear materials after they were allegedly found trying to sell 173 grams of enriched uranium smuggled from Russia, Anadolu news agency reported on Tuesday.
The two men were arrested in the Istanbul suburb of Harem trying to sell the enriched uranium to undercover police officers for 7 million U.S. dollars, according to a statement released by customs police.
The men were later charged with smuggling nuclear materials.
Anadolu quoted police sources as saying that the uranium seized was enough to power New York City for a year.
Investigations by the Turkish Nuclear Energy Agency found that the enriched uranium was of medium-grade.
Less than an ounce. But I'm sure there's more where that came from.
This amount is useful only for a dirty bomb.
I hope the Turkish-style interrogations yield some good info.
Kinda puts the price of gold to shame. Wow. Hard to stop at those prices.
Joe Wilson will get to the bottom of this!
Approx 6 oz.
For uranium 234, 235, and 238, the half lives are respectively 247,000 years, 0.71 billion years, and 4.51 billion years.
half-life meaning, that any location where this was scattered would be contaminated for that amount of years?
ping
I believe it means that the radiation lever of a substance falls by half over the given period.
Half life means half of it would have decayed by that length of time. In other words, this stuff would remain potent for a long long time. To answer your question, yes.
Good news they were caught but at the same time disturbing.. how many smugglers have they missed?
that makes me feel better........NOT!!
Why does this not surprise me. My question is, how much has been sold that were caught
This kind of smuggling has been a cottage industry for years. Usually, the material turns out to be very low grade stuff, or material that has been "salted" with a speck or two of hot material.
In sort, it is almost always a con job.
That's the chemistry. In reality, it would be cleaned up, diluted/distributed by wind and rain, etc., the bigest threat would probably be inhalation of the dust in the short term.
Lever = level Duh.
Sounds more like 6 ounces to me...
I see US taxpayers dollars have been well spent.
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