-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.thestar.com/editorial/news/990124NEW02_FO-NUKE24.html
<A HREF="http://www.thestar.com/editorial/news/990124NEW02_FO-NUKE24.html">
News Story: The Mafia joins the nuclear club - </A>
-----
January 24, 1999
Black market nukes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second of two parts
The Mafia joins the nuclear club
Police sting nets enriched uranium on black market
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Special to The Star
ROME - At a little past noon last Feb. 10, an undercover agent with a
graying moustache entered the Café de Paris on Via Veneto, a block from
the American embassy. The police agent, posing as an Egyptian
businessman, ordered an espresso and waited.
A few minutes later, two mafiosi arrived at the café intent on selling
the agent a 28-inch-long cylinder containing a 190-gram bar of enriched
uranium.
A Sicilian dressed in a blazer did most of the talking. Soon the agent
was surrounded by several other men - including a known mob assassin -
all with semi-automatic pistols inside their jackets.
``At the first meeting both sides are very alert, nervous,'' the agent
said later. ``You feel a moment of danger run through things. They study
you, trying to unmask identity. It is not like a movie. There are no
second takes. You only have one chance to get it right.
``I had to convince them I was the kind of guy who would buy a bomb.''
This nuclear tale began unfolding months earlier, when a Mafia turncoat
tipped an Italian prosecutor about a stockpile of uranium the mob was
peddling. The Mafia boasted of possessing a long list of nuclear
materials, including eight missiles from the former Soviet Union.
Authorities quickly finessed a sting code-named Operation Gamma,
depositing millions of dollars in a Swiss bank account.
What they uncovered stunned them: An organized-crime syndicate not only
had managed to obtain a cache of nuclear material but also was boldly
trying to sell it to anyone willing to pay $170 million.
With terrorist groups and rogue states eager to build crude nuclear
weapons, and with Russia's nuclear arsenal left vulnerable by economic
chaos, the Mafia's hawking of uranium further raises the nuclear stakes
in the post-Cold War era.
Police confiscated the 190-gram uranium bar. But police and intelligence
officials acknowledge they failed to capture the mob's entire stockpile.
They speculate that seven other bars - comprising 1,330 grams of uranium
- are most likely hidden in Italy.
Intelligence officials say there is one more unnerving possibility: The
mob may actually be holding eight Russian missiles.
The Italian investigation netted 14 mobsters from three crime families.
Among those arrested were Marco Murroni, who has ties to the Palermo
mob, and Sergio Tringale, of the Santapaola clan from Catania. The
co-operation between criminal gangs indicates the Mafia's network is
widening into nuclear material that can be trafficked to nations or
terrorist groups.
Equally troubling to authorities was the Mafia's nonchalance in handling
radioactive material. The uranium bar was hauled around in automobile
trunks. At one point, according to police, a mobster sealed a small
crack in the bar with a blow torch.
``The Mafia didn't have the tools or the science to determine what they
had,'' said Sebastiano Ardita, an assistant prosecutor in Catania. ``I
think they thought they were really selling a nuclear warhead. It's
humorous and frightening at the same time.''
When the agent stepped through the polished doors of Café de Paris on
Feb. 10, he was uncertain what kind of uranium the Mafia was peddling.
After espressos, the four mobsters took the agent to lunch on the
outskirts of Rome.
Talk quickly turned from soccer to uranium. The men wanted $170 million
for what they described as uranium and, at various times, either
components for eight Russian nuclear missiles or nuclear material from
their warheads; they never actually produced missiles for inspection.
The undercover agent, code-named the Accountant, countered with an offer
to pay $18.5 million for each uranium item over a period of time.
There was haggling. But the Mafia wanted a quick score, and finally the
$18.5 million price was agreed upon.
The Sicilians said they would contact the agent to set up the next
meeting.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Uranium bar No. 6916, was shipped to a Triga II research reactor in
Kinshasa, Zaire, in 1972 - one of at least 10 bars sent to Zaire.
Wracked by instability, Zaire quit funding the reactor in 1988. It was
shut down in 1992. The International Atomic Energy Agency noted that
some uranium was missing from the reactor facility during the 1980s.
Italian investigators believe someone in the entourage of then-dictator
Mobutu Sese Seko carted out the bar when rebel forces toppled his
government in 1997.
At some point, the bar surfaced on the black market and found its way to
the Mafia.
In late 1997, Gaetano Fiamingo agreed to work with undercover agents in
setting up the uranium sting.
Fiamingo had learned of the Mafia's uranium in a December, 1997, meeting
with Sergio Tringale, a member of the Santapaola clan in Catania, and
Marco Murroni, who was connected to the Palermo Mafia.
The uranium, police now say, was controlled by a clan in Calabria known
as ``Ndrangheta.'' The Roman and Calabrian gangs informed clans in
Palermo and Catania of their desire to co-operate in selling the uranium
cache for $170 million to an unspecified Middle East country.
As the middleman, Fiamingo was responsible for the deal. In a skillful
game of persuasion, he asked the Mafiosi for photos and documentation of
the uranium, reassuring the clans that he was negotiating with an
Egyptian businessman.
By early 1998, the mobsters believed the undercover agent's vague hints
that he was linked to a terrorist group or backed by a radical Middle
Eastern country.
On a cell-phone call placed through Fiamingo, they asked for a second
meeting. On Feb. 26 the agent arrived at Rome's Tiburtina train station.
He was accompanied by a second undercover officer, code-named The
Engineer, who played the role of a nuclear scientist hired by the
Egyptian to test the uranium.
The agents followed three Mafiosi who met them at the station to an
abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Rome.
The Engineer carried an aluminum briefcase and another bag containing a
Geiger counter, a German-made plastic scintillometer that measures
radioactive emissions, a contamination monitor, and a zip-up protective
suit and gloves.
Lacking a scientist of its own, the mob was duped as The Engineer waved
his instruments over the uranium and carefully registered the
measurements.
The Engineer walked out of the warehouse as two mobsters loaded the bar
into a red Fiat Uno and quickly drove away.
The sale of the first bar would go down the next afternoon.
The ``Egyptian businessman'' drove north to Switzerland Feb. 27. There
he would transfer $18.5 million into a Mafia account - but only after
receiving a call from The Engineer in Rome, where the uranium bar would
change hands.
The plot was playing smoothly until Swiss police - co-operating with
Italian authorities - inadvertently pulled over the Mercedes carrying
mobsters Tringale and Armando Carbone to the bank. When they realized
their mistake, the police made it seem like a routine traffic stop and
let the Mercedes go.
But Tringale was spooked and after he called a mob contact in Rome, he
cancelled the deal.
The Engineer knew none of this. He was 650 kilometres away with armed
mobsters in the Mafia's office in Rome, where he had ``verified'' that
the uranium was authentic and prepared to make the phone call to
Switzerland that would seal the deal.
Aware of the danger he was in, police moved in quickly, arresting the
surprised mobsters.
The uranium bar recovered by police weighed about 190 grams and
contained 38 grams of the isotope U-235, a key ingredient for a nuclear
bomb.
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
On their marks: Games chiefs poised for major cleanup Protect the
children, not their molesters
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Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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