Western experts on the lookout for loose nuclear material that might fall into the wrong hands encountered the proverbial absent-minded professor in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan in Central Asia.
Oh yes, he recalled, since they asked, he did have some nuclear material that had been sent to him from Moscow for research purposes years ago. The professor rummaged through a closet and produced a sealed container holding 55 pounds of plutonium-more than enough to make three nuclear bombs.
The discovery last year of this total breakdown of security explains how criminals have managed to steal nuclear material from the former Soviet Union and peddle it in the West and why Western governments and their police services are concerned that the material could wind up in the hands of rogue states or terrorists intent on making their own bombs.
“There are literally thousands of civilian laboratories in the former Soviet Union that were given nuclear material,” said Bruno Pellaud, deputy director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.
“They are the weak point in the system. The professors, guards and janitors are poorly paid, or not paid at all, and the temptation for them to sell material is sometimes great. We found a shocking lack of security at these laboratories.”
A spate of seizures in Germany last year produced a near-hysterical reaction there and may have created a public impression around the world that the problem was out of control. But the IAEA, German police, Western diplomats and other sources, though deeply concerned, note the following:
– Most of the seizures in Germany involved radioactive material that couldn’t be used in bombmaking. The IAEA estimates that there have been “about 10” cases of smuggled material around the world involving weapons-usable material, and only very small amounts of material were found in most of these cases.
– There is no evidence that any material reached a potential bombmaking state or terrorist group.
– There is no hard evidence of any theft from Russian military stocks, which contain the bulk of that country’s nuclear material, and greater controls now are being imposed on civilian stocks in Russia and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus.
“The problem has been overblown by the media because it was a good scare,” Pellaud said. “Still, it needs to be taken seriously. There is a handful of serious cases.”
In Washington, Assistant Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said he knew of only four cases in which the theft of worrisome amounts of weapons-usable material has occurred.
But are these cases merely the tip of an iceberg? Have others escaped the attention of police, and have supplies reached states such as Iran, Algeria and Libya that are suspected of wanting to acquire nuclear weapons?
Authorities say they cannot know for certain, but they always have to consider the possibility that the problem is bigger than they now believe.
“For me, every kind of crime in this field is dangerous,” said Peter Kroemer, a director in the German Federal Criminal Police in Wiesbaden who deals with nuclear matters. “There could be a large number of cases that is unknown to us.”
But Kroemer added: “There is no evidence there is a buyer’s market. There are a lot of sellers and middlemen, but no buyers.”
There seems little doubt that German statistics have contributed to public alarm. For example, the Federal Criminal Police reported 267 “cases” in this field in 1994. But 85 of these involved fraudulent claims by people to have nuclear material, and many of the others simply represent tips to police about companies or people alleged to be involved in nuclear smuggling.
In only 19 cases did the police seize radioactive material, and in only four of these did the material have a potential for use in bombmaking, the statistics reveal.
The most serious smuggling case came to light last Dec. 14 not in Germany but in Prague. A caller tipped Czech police that a supply of highly enriched uranium could be found in a light blue Saab 99GL parked on the Argentinske, a side street in the city’s northern district.
Police moved in and seized 5.9 pounds of uranium, the largest quantity yet uncovered. (It takes 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium, or 17.6 pounds of plutonium, to make a bomb, according to the IAEA.)
The Czech police arrested three men, a Czech, a Russian and a Ukrainian. The Czech was identified as Jaroslav Vagner, a physicist described in police files as an expert on heavy-water moderated reactors. He formerly worked at a nuclear research institute and on a nuclear power project.
Authorities say the highly enriched uranium seized in Prague was identical to 0.8 grams (0.028 of an ounce) of material bought by undercover German police agents in Landshut, Germany, last June 13.
Police arrested six suspects in Landshut on July 4 and confiscated three lead containers containing 120 uranium pellets (which have no value in bombmaking). One of the suspects, a Pole, was reported to have connections to Vagner. Analysis of the material that was seized, authorities, said, indicated it may have come from a fuels complex at Ust-Kamenogorsk in Kazakhstan.
Last year 1,320 pounds of highly enriched uranium were taken to the U.S. from that facility for safekeeping after the IAEA determined that the plant was subject to leakages.
Czech investigators are said to believe that the material seized in Prague came into the country by rail from Slovakia or Poland. It was in containers bearing the label of the former Soviet navy’s Black Sea fleet compound in Odessa.
But there are no nuclear-powered submarines in the Black Sea that might explain this fact. IAEA officials suggest the material probably was stolen from a civilian laboratory doing research for the navy.
Bernd Schmidbauer, Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s intelligence chief, said in a television interview last July that plutonium found in another German case came from “secret Russian nuclear weapons research” or “nuclear weapons production.”
Other knowledgeable sources dispute that claim, and Schmidbauer’s role in the nuclear seizures made in Germany has provoked both public controversy among German politicians and private anger among others involved in trying to deal with the problem.
One of the most highly publicized seizures in Germany, which occurred last Aug. 10, was a sting operation set up by German police. Posing as potential buyers, the police met Justiniano Torrez Benitez, a Colombian national living in Moscow, and offered him $250 million if he could obtain 4.5 kilograms (9.9 pounds) of plutonium. He agreed to supply one kilogram (2.2 pounds) for that amount.
When a Lufthansa flight from Moscow carrying Torres Benitez and two other Spanish-speaking men landed at Munich on Aug. 10, police were waiting. They found a black suitcase in the plane’s hold containing a plastic bag filled with powder and a metal container. Torres Benitez and his accomplices were immediately arrested.
A laboratory analysis showed the plastic bag contained lithium 6, a nonradioactive substance required to make hydrogen bombs. The metal container held mixed oxides of plutonium and uranium.
Leaders of the opposition Social Democratic Party suggested Kohl used the police arrests of nuclear smugglers to bolster his image before national elections last October. The incidents also provided him with a powerful argument for a Europol police organization he wants the 15-nation European Union to set up.
Germany’s Parliamentary Control Commission, which oversees intelligence matters, has said that German journalists and police agents, masquerading as buyers, have created most of the demand for smuggled nuclear material in the country.
The magazine Der Spiegel and Spiegel-TV have used reporters posing as buyers to obtain radioactive material, and TV cameras have been on hand to record police making arrests.
Western diplomats in Moscow say media coverage of the nuclear problem “often borders on hysteria.” In some cases, they said, undercover agents posing as sellers have sold material to other undercover investigators posing as buyers.
Schmidbauer played a role in another case in the village of Tengen in southwest Germany last May 10 in which police, investigating a man for suspected counterfeit money operations, accidentally stumbled upon 12.3 ounces of plutonium 239 in his garage.
The man, Adolf Jaekle, a former auto mechanic, is awaiting trial. Jaekle’s lawyer said Schmidbauer persuaded him to turn over information gleaned from talks with his clients. The lawyer has been disbarred as a result of this breach of client confidentiality.
Kroemer, the federal police director, said police have been unable to determine the precise origin of the materials seized in Germany.
Scientific analysis cannot pinpoint an exact location, he said, and claims by those arrested are considered unreliable.
But he said suspects sometimes show certificates for the material that are written in the Cyrillic characters used in Russia and other Slav countries, and containers also bear labels in Cyrillic. “Altogether this leads us to the explanation that the material comes from several former East Bloc countries,” he said. IAEA officials in Vienna said most of it comes from Russia.
Kroemer said some of those arrested in Germany have links with companies in the U.S. or with people living there. He declined to elaborate.
Authorities say that, because of the wide publicity given to nuclear smuggling cases in Germany, illicit traffic in nuclear materials is taking other routes. Turkish police have made a number of seizures of radioactive material in the last year, none of it usable in bombmaking. IAEA officials say some material also may be going out of Russia through the Islamic republics in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Since the German cases, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin has issued several directives aimed at tightening security at nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union, and diplomats said Russian intelligence agents are pursuing the problem diligently with the help of the U.S. and other nations.
Russian sources said police have thwarted about two dozen attempts to steal nuclear material in the last two years. Only one involved weapons-grade material, 6.6 pounds of it, the sources said.
Diplomats said the threat of Russian scientists selling material was easing because money was beginning to filter down through the nuclear industry. Much of this money will come from sales of Russian nuclear materials to the U.S.
Under one deal, which could bring in several billion dollars, the Russians will blend down 500 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium to be shipped to the U.S.
