Radioactive poisoningStolen nuclear material found intact in Mexico

Mexican police yesterday said they have found a truck, a white 2007 Volkswagen cargo vehicle, which was stolen by thieves who apparently were not aware that it was carrying toxic radioactive medical material. The radioactive material could also be used to build a “dirty bomb.”

Fox news reports that the truck was found on Wednesday in a small city north of Mexico City. A police spokesman could not confirm whether the radioactive cargo was aboard.

The truck was taking cobalt-60 from a hospital in the northern city of Tijuana to a radioactive waste-storage center when it was stolen Monday.

The truck was seized by the thieves when it stopped at a gas station in the town of Temascalapa, about twenty-two miles northeast of Mexico City.

Truck hijacking is common in Mexico, and the authorities note that it was stolen in a state which is not a major area of operation for the Mexican drug cartels.

“Our suspicion is that they had no idea what they had stolen. This is a area where robberies are common,” Fernando Hidalgo, spokesman for the Hidalgo state prosecutor, said Wednesday.

Mexico’s Comisión Nacional de Seguridad Nuclear y Salvaguardias (CNSNS) published photographs of the nuclear cargo, in its container, as it was being prepared for shipment. The pictures show a reinforced case containing the medical device, which holds the radioactive material and which, to the untrained eye, looks like part of a car axle. The box carries the hospital’s name and the words “radioactive materials.”

Juan Eibenschutz, director general of the CNSNS, said that on average, a half-dozen thefts of radioactive materials are reported in Mexico each year. None has proven to be aimed at the cargo, Eibenschutz said, noting that in all the cases the thieves were after vehicles or the shipping containers.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had warned even before the latest incident that cobalt-60 can be used in a dirty bomb, has been urging member states of the organization to tighten security to prevent nuclear and radioactive materials from falling into the wrong hands.

The IAEA, in its statement Wednesday, did not give details on how much radioactive material was in the vehicle when it was stolen.

“At the time the truck was stolen, the (radioactive) source was properly shielded. However, the source could be extremely dangerous to a person if removed from the shielding, or if it was damaged,” the IAEA said.

Cobalt-60 is widely used in industry, in radiotherapy in hospitals, and for industrial radiography to detect structural flaws in metal parts.

“Cobalt-60 has figured in several serious accidents, some of them fatal,” said nuclear expert Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank. “If dispersed, cobalt-60 or other radioactive source material could cause radiation poisoning locally.”

The IAEA said that more than 100 incidents of thefts and other unauthorized activities involving nuclear and radioactive material are reported to the agency annually. Typically, though, the agency does not make any such incident public.

Security experts say that because of the considerable difficulties involved in building a nuclear bomb, it is much more likely that terrorists would use a dirty bomb. At a nuclear security summit in 2012, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano singled out cobalt-60 among radioactive sources that could be used for such bombs. “A dirty bomb detonated in a major city could cause mass panic, as well as serious economic and environmental consequences,” Amano said.