Magnitogorsk customs officials detain vehicle with radioactive turn indicator

June 17, 2008

Abstract:

Officials at the Magnitogorsk customs (Chelyabinsk region, Russia) detained a VAZ passenger vehicle operated by a Russian citizen. The vehicle, headed to Kazakhstan, registered an elevated radiation level of 6.17 microsievert/hr. Upon close examination of the car, customs agents discovered an airplane turn indicator, covered with a layer of radium-226, had been installed in the vehicle. The driver, a former pilot, had scotch-taped the device, which he had found in an abandoned warehouse in Chelyabinsk, to the car’s dashboard in order to track the tilt of the vehicle. He was reportedly unaware that the device was radioactive.

Customs agents confiscated the turn indicator and initiated administrative proceedings against the driver for failing to declare the radioactive object. {Entered 9/23/08 AL}

Abstract Number: 20080180
Headline: Magnitogorsk customs officials detain vehicle with radioactive turn indicator
Date: 17 June 2008
Bibliography: "Magnitogorskiye tamozhenniki sokhranili zdorovye byvshemu aviatoru," Ural-Press-Inform, 17 June 2008; in Integrum Techno, www.integrum.ru.
Material: Contaminated Materials

This material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or its directors, officers, employees, or agents. Copyright © 2011 by MIIS.

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This article is part of a collection examining reported incidents of nuclear or radioactive materials trafficking in or originating from the Newly Independent States.