NTI Website Resources on Nuclear Trafficking

updated January 26, 2007

On January 25, 2007, the media reported the seizure of 100 grams of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in Georgia. The actual incident occurred in 2006, and some earlier reports about a seizure of uranium of unspecified enrichment level in Georgia were published in February 2006. However, no additional information about this incident was made public in the ensuing year.

According to the January 25, 2007 story in the New York Times, the material involved is HEU. The level of enrichment--nearly 90-percent enriched U-235--makes it ideal material for the construction of a nuclear weapon, although, the seized amount is too low to be sufficient for a bomb. The HEU seizure in Georgia was the result of a sting operation conducted by the Georgian secret services, who became aware of a Russian national from North Ossetia (a region of the Russian Federation that borders South Ossetia, a separatist region in Georgia), looking for a buyer for 2-3 kilograms of enriched uranium. A Georgian undercover agent was able to convince the would-be seller to bring a sample of the material to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Oleg Khinsagov, the main perpetrator, and three accomplices from Georgia were arrested with 100 grams of the material on February 1, 2006.

In seeking the origin of the material, Georgian authorities turned to the United States and Russia for assistance. Both countries were provided small samples of the material for analysis. However, according to Georgian sources, Russian experts were not able to establish the origin of the material. The 2007 New York Times report also mentions the seizure of 170 grams of HEU on the border between Georgia and Armenia in 2003. In this earlier case, as reported, the material came from a nuclear facility in Novosibirsk. The report does not rule out the possibility that the HEU seized in February 2006 is also of Russian origin.

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies has gathered the following information on nuclear trafficking and highly enriched uranium as well as the table below of confirmed proliferation-significant incidents of fissile material trafficking in the NIS (1991 - 2007).

NTI Website Resources on Nuclear Trafficking
	NIS Nuclear Trafficking Database
	Issue Brief: Illicit Trafficking in the NIS
	Nuclear Terrorism Tutorial
	Securing the Bomb: Interdicting Nuclear Smuggling
	Securing the Bomb: The Threat
	Issue Brief: Russian Spent Nuclear Fuel
	Issue Brief: Nuclear Trafficking Hoaxes: A Short History of Scams Involving Red Mercury and Osmium-187
	Nuclear Bomb Basics
	The Nuclear Fuel Cycle
	Civilian Uses of HEU
	World Map of Civilian HEU Stocks
	Civilian HEU Reduction and Elimination
	WMD411: Curbing WMD Proliferation
	Russia Country Profile
	Georgia Country Profile

Overview of Confirmed Proliferation-Significant Incidents of Fissile Material Trafficking in the NIS, 1991-2007

Scope Note: This table describes incidents involving trafficking in HEU and plutonium in the NIS that CNS considers both confirmed and proliferation-significant. Confirmed cases are those that have been reported by multiple, independent, reliable sources. Proliferation-significant incidents are those in which (1) more than miniscule quantities of HEU or plutonium are involved; or (2) other aspects of the incident, such as the characteristics of the material involved, or the circumstances surrounding its theft, raise unusual concerns in terms of proliferation. [1]

CASE NAME & DATE OF DIVERSION	MATERIAL DIVERTED	ORIGIN OF MATERIAL	RECOVERY OF MATERIAL
Podolsk 5/92-9/92	1.5 kg of 90% HEU	Luch Scientific Production Association, Podolsk, Russia	10/9/92: Russian police operation intercepted the smuggler, an employee of Luch facility, in the Podolsk train station.
Vilnius, Lithuania early 1992	About 100 g of 50% HEU	Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, Obninsk, Russia	5/93: Approximately 100 g of HEU discovered in Vilnius bank vault embedded in portions of a shipment of four metric tons of beryllium.
Andreyeva Guba 7/29/93	1.8 kg of 36% HEU	Naval base storage facility, Andreeva Guba, Russia	7/29/93: Russian security forces arrested the thieves before they could smuggle the material out of Russia.
Tengen Unknown	6.15 g of Plutonium-239	Unconfirmed; possibly Arzamas-16, Russia	5/10/94: Police in suspect’s apartment for another reason, stumbled upon the cache of plutonium.
Landshut Unknown	800 mg of 87.7% HEU	Unconfirmed; likely Obninsk	6/13/94: Undercover German police acted as potential customers in a sting operation.
Sevmorput 11/27/93	4.5 kg of 20% HEU	Naval shipyard, Sevmorput, Russia	6/94: The brother of a suspect asked a co-worker for help finding a customer. The co-worker notified authorities.
Munich Unknown	560 g MOX fuel; 363 g of Plutonium-239	Unconfirmed; likely Obninsk	8/10/94: Undercover German police acted as potential customers in a sting operation. In a related seizure in July 1994, German police had seized a small sample of plutonium-uranium MOX powder.
Prague Unknown	2.7 kg of 87.7% HEU	Unconfirmed; likely Obninsk	12/14/94: Anonymous tip to police giving the material’s location (a parked car). In two instances in June 1995, Czech authorities recovered small additional amounts of HEU believed to be from the same source.
St. Petersburg [2] Unknown	3.05 kg of 90% HEU	Unconfirmed; likely Machine Building Plant, Elektrostal, Russia	6/8/94: Russian news agencies report that in March 1994, Russian Federal Security Service agents arrested three suspects attempting to sell about 3 kg of HEU. Russian officials have confirmed the incident.
Moscow May 1994	1.7 kg of HEU	Elektrostal	6/8/95: In a sting operation, Russian Federal Security Service agents arrested three suspects trying to sell HEU, one of whom was an employee of Elektrostal.
Sukhumi Unknown	Approximately 2 kg of 90% HEU	I.N. Vekua Physics and Technology Institute, Sukhumi, Georgia	12/97: Russian inspection team visited facility, which had been closed by 1992 Abkhazian-Georgian conflict, and found facility abandoned, and material included in 1992 inventory missing. Material has not been recovered.
Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia Unknown	18.5 kg of HEU (enrichment level unspecified)	Unknown, possibly Mayak Production Association, Chelyabinsk-70, or Zlatoust-36	12/17/98: Russian Federal Security service reports that it thwarted an attempt by workers at a nuclear facility in Chelyabinsk Oblast to steal 18.5 kg of nuclear material. 10/00: Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy official confirms incident involved HEU.
Dunav Most, Bulgaria Unknown	4 g of 72% HEU	Unknown	5/29/99: Bulgarian customs officers discovered HEU hidden in the trunk of a car crossing from Bulgaria into Romania. Driver said he had obtained material in Moldova.
Elektrostal, Russia Unknown	3.7 kg of 21% HEU	Unconfirmed., possibly Elektrostal Machine-Building Plant, Bochvar Institute (VNIINM), or Politekh Enterprise, Russia	5/2000: A resident of Elektrostal was detained during an attempt to sell 3.7 kg of uranium enriched to 21 percent U-235. Incident was reported by Gosatomnadzor.
Tbilisi, Georgia Unknown	0.4 g of plutonium powder	Unknown	5/2000: An individual was arrested for illegal possession of a small quantity of mixed powder containing about 0.4 g of plutonium and 0.8 g of low-enriched uranium.
Paris, France	0.5 g of 72% HEU	Unknown, Russian/NIS origin suspected	7/16/2001: French police arrested three men and confiscated approximately 0.5 g of HEU.
Sadahlo, Georgia 6/26/03	170 g of nearly 90% HEU	Unconfirmed, Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrate Plant (NZKhK), Russia	6/26/03: Georgian border guards arrested a man trying to transport the material across the Georgian-Armenian border.
Tbilisi, Georgia 2/01/06	79.5 g of nearly 90% HEU	Unknown, Russian origin suspected	2/01/06: Georgian security services in a string operation arrested a Russian national in Tbilisi attempting to sell 79.5 grams of HEU.

Footnotes:
[1] The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) maintains a table of “Confirmed Incidents with Plutonium or High-Enriched Uranium,” listing 18 incidents. The table below notes only 14 incidents. The discrepancy results from different criteria used to compile the two charts. The IAEA table includes 3 incidents which are not clearly linked to the NIS. These cases are not included in the chart below. The IAEA chart also includes two small seizures linked to the 1994 Prague case as separate incidents and one seizure linked to the 1994 Munich case as a separate incident. These are noted under the Munich and Prauge incidents in the chart below, but are not listed as separate incidents. The IAEA chart also includes three small seizures involving a few grams of plutonium in Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, and Georgia, which CNS judged not to be proliferation-significant. Overall, of the 18 incidents listed by the IAEA, the chart below covers 12 (but only 9 are listed separately). The chart below also describes five incidents not included in the IAEA chart: the Podolsk incident, the Andreyeva Guba incident, the Sevmorput incident, the Chelyabinsk incident, and the Sukhumi incident. The IAEA includes only incidents that have been verified by member states, and these cases, although noted in multiple open-source reports, may not have been reported as trafficking incidents to the IAEA. The IAEA table also does not list incidents prior to 1993, which accounts for the absence of the 1992 Podolsk incident.
[2] This case is included in the list of confirmed trafficking incidents largely on the basis of reports made to IAEA by the Russian Federation. Additional corroborating evidence, however, is not readily available.

This material is produced independently for NTI by the 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, agents. Copyright © 2007 by MIIS.