- Nuclear Material Stolen From Texas Last Year Eludes US Authorities
by https://sputniknews.com/
The Center for Public Integrity has released a new report revealing that more than a year later, authorities have still failed to turn up stolen nuclear material lost by two US Department of Energy experts after they left it in their car and got stolen while in a hotel parking lot.
–
According to the report, two US Department of Energy experts were heading to the Idaho National Laboratory, DoE research center, on March 21, 2017, with a mission to retrieve nuclear materials from the laboratory and make sure it does not fall into the wrong hands.
–
Their mission went sideways after the two left radioactivity sources — plutonium and cesium in plastic-wrapped disks used for instrument calibration — in their car in the parking lot of a Marriott hotel they’d pulled into for the night. The next morning, they found the car’s window smashed and the bag stolen. No amount of forensics could come up with any useful clues as to who the perpetrators were.
–
Officer Carlos Ortiz who was at the original scene in San Antonio, told ABC News at the time that the case was a typical “smash-and-grab” with no fingerprints left, surveillance recorded or witnesses available to help find the suspect. They “should have never left a sensitive instrument like this unattended in a vehicle,” Ortiz said.
–
While the amount of the stolen radioactive material has not been specified, Idaho lab spokeswoman Sarah Neumann said it was not enough to make a nuclear bomb, according to the Daily Beast. According to Ortiz, the police eventually closed the investigation to avoid “chasing a ghost.” It takes seven pounds, or slightly more than three kilograms, of plutonium or nine pounds of uranium to make a real nuclear warhead.
–
The worst part of the news is that the stolen radioactive material is only a fraction of all nuclear material stolen or lost in the US. According to the Daily Beast, the amount of missing nuke stuff is big enough for the government to come up with a special acronym for it: MUF, or “material unaccounted for.”
–
read more.
ISIS(ISIL), Al Qaeda … = CIA jihadists. Click on image for article.
Warning! This user is on my black list, likely as a known plagiarist, spammer or ID thief. Please be cautious with this post!
If you believe this is an error, please chat with us in the #cheetah-appeals channel in our discord.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit