Scandal: “Atomflot” employee tried to sell uranium

In Murmansk, one of the directors of “Atomflot” company stood before the court trial for an attempt to illegally sell one kilogram of radioactive uranium mixture.

This is a unique case: for the first time in 30 years of radioactive materials trade, a court decides on a case of an attempt to sell them.

The guilty, Teliukov, wanted to sell one kilogram of the mixture consisting of uranium, radium and products of these elements’ half-life period. The price was 55,000 American dollars. The radioactive toxic elements contained in the mixture belong to the first-class dangerous sources of ionizing radiation. A nuclear charge can not be produced of it, but the very container of this mixture is a “dirty bomb”: “the mixture can be sprayed and poison the nature. And he did not care whom he would sell it to”, comments Pavel Eremin, a public prosecutor assistant. “The investigation possesses telephone calls recordings, where the seller discusses where to invest the acquired money into. He’d been waiting for this moment for fifteen years. The dangerous goods are not that easy to sell. Once, he decided to simply throw the container away – in despair.

Then took the container to a garage in the center of Murmansk, and had kept it there for many years. Teliukov has worked in “Atomflot” for twenty years. The company services ice-breaker ships and nuclear waste transmitting machines. The dangers of nuclear materials are perfectly understood here. Teliuokov knows it too.

The judge Sergey Alisov read the sentence: “One year and six months of imprisonment at the settlement” A half of this time is for keeping a pack of bullets is a safe. According to the Russian law, it is a worse crime than keeping and selling nuclear materials, despite of the greater danger should the latter go to the bad hands. In 1998 when the Criminal codex was approved, the danger of terrorists acquiring the nuclear materials was not foreseen.

[the illustration shows the moment of the container transmission]

KSF.Ru [using ORT information]