Four bust in 'dirty bomb' sale sting

www.iol.co.za... vn20100710085544493C308461

An international police sting at a Pretoria petrol station has netted four men involved in the sale of a highly radioactive metal suspected to be destined for use in a dirty bomb.
The high-risk operation by the Hawks' specialised tactical unit was carried out yesterday.
Police recovered some Caesium-137 contained in a protective cover, but admitted they had yet to find a larger device, which was set to be sold on the black market for R45 million.
CCTV footage shows how undercover members of the Hawks' organised crime unit stormed through a Sasol garage, opening fire on the suspects with semi-automatic weapons, sending terrified customers, motorists and petrol attendants fleeing.

I don't really have any comment, this just stands entirely alone. I understand that what was recovered was only a sample.
All news stories go back to this IOL article, by Independant Newspapers. I also see there is CCTV footage, although it hasn't surfaced online yet that i can find.

reply to post by harryhaller


Actually, it's a really big problem. If you know what to hit, how to remove it from the system and transport it without dying right away, there is a LOT of cesium-137 and cobalt-60 that's badly guarded and right out in the open.

The only thing keeping it from being a big issue is that the 'bad guys' are too brain dead to have thought of it yet, although from the few hints in the article, I'd say that time is over now.

www.cfr.org...

In 1995 Chechen rebels planted, but failed to detonate a dirty bomb consisting of dynamite and cesium 137 in Moscow's Ismailovsky Park.

Not much more than it takes to make a conventional bomb. No special assembly is required; the regular explosive simply disperses the radioactive material packed into the bomb. The hardest part is acquiring the radioactive material, not building the bomb.

Medical supplies such as radium or certain cesium isotopes used in cancer treatments could also be used. As little as a measuring cup’s worth of radioactive material would be needed, though small amounts probably would not cause severe harm, especially if scattered over a wide area.

reply to post by harryhaller


S and F to you. Thanks for posting this

You beat me to the thread star and flag.

This is quite a worry, however I was pondering the threat of a dirty bomb attack the other day. When I was a young teenager I saw a documentary about x-ray machines being illegally dumped in Mexico, and a scrap metal salesman took a machine from a dump hoping he could sell parts.

Young children were playing in and around the machine, and the end result was that they all developed very serious forms of cancer and some died. At this time it what quite a common occurrence and the machines being dumped were not just that of Mexican hospitals as the serial numbers of those recovered led them to hospitals in the US also. The machines did not have the Cobalt 60 removed and as a result were still highly radioactive.

Cobalt 60 used for X-ray machines is in pellet form and therefore would be highly effective to use in a dirty bomb. Due to the close proximity to the US this material could be easily smuggled in and used by terrorists.

As the material would then be sourced to Mexico, you have your dirty double, you can tighten immigration and also dramatically increase public surveillance using emergency anti-terrorism powers.

Food for thought anyway. I'll see if I can find the documentary and I will post it up.

Here is the article about this event couldn't find the doc. Didn't get the story spot on but I had watched in 10 years ago;

www.window.state.tx.us...

[edit on 12-7-2010 by Big Raging Loner]

Originally posted by Big Raging Loner
You beat me to the thread star and flag.

This is quite a worry, however I was pondering the threat of a dirty bomb attack the other day. When I was a young teenager I saw a documentary about x-ray machines being illegally dumped in Mexico, and a scrap metal salesman took a machine from a dump hoping he could sell parts.

Not X-ray machines, radiotherapy machines. X-ray machines don't have any radioactive parts in them.

There are readily available sources of cesium-137 and cobalt-60 that you could get in any port town. A big radiotherapy machine would work too. The places that make cobalt-60 are usually not that well guarded either. Used to be you could FOIA their security arrangements down to the shift change times and guard postings but hopefully you can't do that anymore.

reply to post by Bedlam


You are correct sir, after I read the article I had a better idea of the story, when I typed up the first bit I was still relying on a 10 year old memory. Not the most reliable.

There was also a case where a young man in the US made his own breeder reactor in his shed using household items. He had apparently learned the skills required from reading books and the scouts.

Just shows you the knowledge and materials are out there. That's why I believe the dirty bomb threat although terrifying is not credible.

reply to post by Big Raging Loner


OMS i'd never heard of this incident!!! Thanks for sharing, HIGHLY recommended reading to anyone. 2/3 points grabbed my attention:

a 20-year-old Picker 3000 radiotherapy machine that the hospital had purchased from the X-ray Equipment Co. in Fort Worth, which had in turn bought the unit from Methodist Hospital in Lubbock.

Sotelo's mistake was in pilfering an unmarked capsule from the load and throwing it into the back of his pick-up truck. Later, when he pried open the capsule, out spilled 6,010 small, silvery pellets that looked like cake decorations but were in fact loaded with high levels of the radioactive cobalt 60 isotope.

Then ... Later in the month, a different truck--this one transporting table legs--set off a radiation monitor in an Illinois State Police officer's patrol car.

Mexican health officials also ordered the demolition of 109 houses built with reinforcing rods containing the radioactive material in the western state of Sinaloa.

And to prevent any more tainted steel from entering the U.S., the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Customs Service officials installed radiation monitors at all border crossings.

Again: The Juarez incident: www.window.state.tx.us...

Originally posted by Big Raging Loner

There was also a case where a young man in the US made his own breeder reactor in his shed using household items. He had apparently learned the skills required from reading books and the scouts.

That was incredibly over-hyped, though. It wasn't really a breeder reactor as much as the guy built a neutron source and bombarded some DU with it. He might have made a few picograms of plutonium if he'd kept it up long enough.

It sounds a lot more exciting to say it's a breeder reactor, though, so that's how it came out in the news.

The cobalt-60-recycled-into-other-objects thing also happened in Taiwan, where it ended up being added to rebar in a couple of apartment complexes and irradiated the dogcrap out of several hundred Taiwanese.

Remember a story some years back about people dying after being downwind of a classified dump-pit fire at Groom Lake? It wasn't just because the stuff was chemically toxic - it is - but some of the older RAM coatings were heavily laced with promethium and actually glowed in the dark from the beta activity. Not something you want to inhale.

[edit on 12-7-2010 by Bedlam]

www.iol.co.za... vn20100713043533125C480910

The five men who were arrested for allegedly being in possession of a highly radioactive metal, will apply for bail next week. The smartly dressed accused will remain in custody until then.
Andre Lesar, 37, of Vanderbijlpark,
Theofilus Faber, 63, of Les Marais,
Nonyana Sydney Maodi, 58, of
Mamelodi East and Rufus Monare, 53, of
Mamelodi West, were arrested on July 9 during a "well co-ordinated police sting operation, while selling a radioactive material to an undercover police officer", the Pretoria Regional Court heard on Monday.
Further investigation led to the arrest of Setjhaba Michael Mofokeng, 31, of Tembisa, on Sunday.

Well this is going to be interesting. The charges include:

being in possession of explosives, but further charges of theft and violating the Health Department's prohibition of handling this material in public

Commercial explosives are very easy to obtain around here.