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An
Example of How Libya Acquired Gas Centrifuges from the A.Q. Khan Nuclear Black
Market 1. A
representative of a third-world country with nuclear aspirations,
like Libya, makes contact with another regional power with similar
religious fundamentalist elements and goals. (Between 1997 and 2002,
representatives from Libya met with Pakistan's chief nuclear
scientist, A.Q. Khan, several times in
Dubai, Istanbul, and Casablanca to discuss how Khan could assist
with Libya’s nuclear ambitions.)
2. Once
contact is established with the black market network, the network
then
contacts the necessary middlemen. (The Khan nuclear network relied
heavily on a Sri Lankan middleman, Buhary Syed Abu Tahir,
based out of Malaysia, to keep the network organized and
operational.)
3. Operating
through legitimate front companies, the network uses one front
company to place an order for the necessary equipment needed to
manufacture the components for the centrifuges. (Peter
Griffin, a British national, places an order for his company, Gulf
Technical Industries (GTI), part of parent company Scomi Group, on
behalf of the Khan smuggling network.)
4. The
legitimate front company places an order with another legitimate
front company in the network for several consignments of dual-use
machinery. (Scomi Precision Engineering [SCOPE], a division of the
Scomi Group, creates the Malaysian division of Scomi Engineering in
2001 expressly to machine the necessary components.
Scomi is principally owned by Kaspadu Investment Holding Company, a
company whose director is none other than Buhary Syed Tahir,
the primary middleman in the Khan nuclear network.)
5. Basing
itself in a country with lax export regulations and practices, the
production company creates the components and ships them to the
ordering company. (SCOPE ships four consignments of centrifuge
components from Kuala Lumpur to GTI in Dubai.)
6. After being
received by the ordering company, the components are then relabeled
as less conspicuous items and shipped via transportation that does
not have a port of call from the country of either the production
company or the ordering company. (The consignments shipped from
SCOPE/Malaysia to GTI/Dubai were disguised and relabeled to avoid
detection; at the 2003 Suez Canal interdiction of components to
Libya, the shipping manifest listed the 40-foot long containers
as "used machine parts.")
7. Upon
receipt of the components, the client gains the necessary
expertise from the network to first machine the non-importable parts
in the client country and then assemble and operate the uranium
enrichment centrifuges. (Plans were made to create a workshop in
Libya to construct the centrifuge components that could not be
obtained outside of the country.) |
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Further Reading:
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