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Abstract:
A Saratov district court convicted two suspects of illicit trafficking in radioactive materials, reported Saratovskiy Arbat on 18 August 2004, citing Nikita Gavrilov, a senior investigator of the public prosecutor's office in Saratov. The two suspects, who were part of an organized crime group involved in the trafficking of precious, rare-earth, and radioactive metals, were convicted together with three accomplices, who were charged with illicit trafficking in precious metals. Another suspect, a resident of Kiev, Ukraine, was found guilty of smuggling precious metals. The convicted criminals will spend from 18 months to 3 years and 1 month in prison. The activities, for which they were convicted, began in early 2004, when the Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Saratov  received a reliable tip about residents of neighboring Voronezh Oblast seeking buyers for osmium. Undercover police officers were sent to negotiate with the sellers, posing as possible buyers. The sellers were asking $12,000 for 1 gram of osmium [approximately 342,000 rubles as of January 2004], although some sources state that the sellers asked for 30,000 rubles per gram. [1] [approximately $1,050 as of January 2004]  [Osmium is not used for nuclear weapons purposes, although con artists frequently claim it has such applications.] Along with 1 gram of osmium, the sellers also were offering two half-plates of what they claimed was plutonium for 120,000 rubles each [approximately $4,209 as of January 2004]. However, subsequent examination identified the "plutonium" material as strontium [probably strontium-90]. Saratovskiye vesti reported that the seized strontium was 20 years old, and, consequently, emitted low level of radiation. [1] In late January, several suspects were detained during the sale of osmium on Altynnaya Mountain, on the Voronezh highway near Saratov. The transaction did not involve the strontium, since the suspects had buried it in snow not far from the Voronezh highway. However, it was also soon seized, since the suspects, residents of Voronezh Oblast, Russia, [1] began to cooperate with law enforcement authorities.[1] [The report does not specify the weight of the seized strontium.] It was established that the osmium came from Ukraine, where in the mid-1990s it was accepted in the banks as a guaranty in place of gold. A Kiev bank had thus accumulated 125 grams of osmium. [The report dos not indicate the name of the bank.] To sell some osmium, bank employees approached Aleksandr Dolzhenko, a former Ukrainian border service officer. Dolzhenko contacted his friend Yury Malooka, a resident of Kuznetsk, [1] Penza Oblast, Russia, and smuggled two grams of osmium into Russia. After that the two men started to look for buyers. Eventually, two residents of Voronezh Oblast and a resident of Bryansk Oblast got involved in the deal. An initial attempt to find buyers in Ekaterinburg, Russia, failed. The dealers later almost sold the osmium to a German national with whom they met in Belarus, but the deal was not completed. [The report does not state the reason.] Finally, the dealers found buyers in Saratov, who turned out to be undercover agents of the Directorate for Fighting Organized Crime. Aleksandr Dolzhenko, a Kiev resident, was the last suspect to be detained. His arrest took place in Moscow. According to Saratovskiye vesti, Dolzhenko admitted that he had smuggled  precious, rare-earth, and radioactive metals to Russia by train. Dolzhenko also admitted that  he had earlier supplied metals to buyers in Ekaterinburg, and to Germany via Belarus.[1] [It is not clear from the available sources  how and where the group acquired the strontium.] Dolzhenko was sentenced to 3 years and one month of imprisonment. [It is unclear from the sources who exactly out of five convicted was found guilty of illicit trafficking in radioactive materials.]

[1] Denis Lebed, "Redkiye metally <ukrainskoy> proby," [Rare-Earth Metals of Ukrainian Alloy], Saratovskiye vesti - Vasha subbota (Saratov), 13 August 2004; in Integrum Techno database, http://integrum.ru.