Dec 07 2006
My Smuggling Theory Coming To Light
Hat Tip to Clarice Feldman for pointing out that my theory the Polonium 210 was a smuggling effort, separate and distinct from an assassination attempt, is now getting more serious reporting.
As Scotland Yard announced that it is treating Alexander Litvinenko’s death as murder, the suspicion is that whoever smuggled the radioactive isotope into Britain, they are not the assassin.
Evidence suggests that a sizeable team was sent from Moscow to shadow its prey, and that this surveillance squad may not have known the identity of the killer.
Scotland Yard said that it was “important to stress that we have not reached any conclusions as to the means employed, the motive or the identity of those who might be responsible for Mr Litvinenko’s deathâ€.
Note that Scotland Yard is leaving open “means” and “motive”, but they do believe a sizeable team entered the UK. I agree with some of those speculating in the comments sections here that we may have two groups of Russians playing chess on UK soil. One was the smugglers and one team was trying to find out what all the activity was about. Litvinenko still does not warrant a large expenditure of any kind. Not a large team to track or the 30+ million euros in Polonium-210.
And I think what we have here is a news media unable to let go of the assassination theory and just not listening to authorities. I think UK and Russian authorities are doing all they can to run this to ground because they know a large scale smuggling effort is much more dangerous to both countries than an assassin and one marginal victim. In fact one leading Russian understands that there is a truly concerning scenario that aims to split Russia and the US and UK relationship apart:
Former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, who fell violently ill in Ireland two weeks ago, says he believes somebody tried to poison him.
He also said opponents of the Russian authorities were probably responsible.
Writing in the Financial Times, Mr Gaidar said he had “rejected the idea of complicity of the Russian leadership almost immediately”.
…
Mr Gaidar said that in his own case it was “most likely” that “some obvious or hidden adversaries of the Russian authorities stand behind the scenes”.
He blamed “those who are interested in further radical deterioration of relations between Russia and the West”.
That sounds like he is describing Berezovsky, Zakayev and Goldfarb. People who, if they were involved in Litvinenko’s poisoning, really needed a diversionary event like the killing of another Russian under mysterious terms. It was quite a fortuituous coincidence then.
Well, the IAEA does not believe that the Russian nuclear black market is that big of an enterprise.
There have been “alleged” black market deals for PO210, but only 1 known instance dating to 1993.
RU nuclear sites are victim to thefts due to lack of proper security, and internal theft – workers looking for a “quick buck”.
This was not a Seller to Buyer black market deal.
This was possibly a theft of the PO210 with intent to sell, or intent to harm.
There is talk that StaticMasters with PO210 can be broken down to extricate enough PO210 to do in a man. I don’t think this was extricated in that fashion, and I think the PO@10 has left an indelible fingerprint that authorities have traced back to the source.
If it was legitimate Po210 that was diverted, it might have a tracer. If it was made in some university research reactor, it probably won’t.
Just saw this in the Salt Lake Tribune:
“Scaramella said Litvinenko made a bit on the side by smuggling toxic isotopes. The future victim of polonium poisoning lived on Berezovsky’s hand-me-downs and badly needed more money.
According to information leaked from the post-mortem examination, Litvinenko died of a dose that could cost 30 million euros. This seems a bit too rich for a murder.”
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_4790712
Also this:
“The European media is now reporting that Litvinenko was involved in smuggling nuclear materials from Russia to Zurich in 2000 and that he may have continued his involvement in nuclear smuggling. Some reports, including recent comments to the BBC by Litvinenko’s friend, Italian “security expert” Mario Scaramella, suggest that Litvinenko was involved in the smuggling on radioactive materials.
An accident involved in the smuggling of nuclear materials may have resulted in Litvinenko’s poisoning from radioactive polonium-210.”
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_wayne_ma_061204_litvinenko_suspected.htm
CP,
We know there is a tracer because AWE thought they Identified the Russian reactor. I assume this was based on the tracer.
I believe anyone producing nuclear material is now required to use a tracer and keep books on supplies in and products out.
I find the occasional references to ‘submarines’ interesting – to say the least.
CP–the 2000 event was already published–it was FOR Russia. Scaramella reported it.
As for the latest report it’s from Novosti–a Russian publication. I have no idea of its repute. Do you?
That report of the Russian reactor is based on one single unnamed/unconfirmed report in the Evening Standard of “a government source”. It has still not been confirmed and I have heard two different reactors mentioned even in various versions of that report. The first one mentioned was a standard power plant that wouldn’t have facilities to make/process polonium.
Until I see a statement directly attributed to AWE that it came from a Russian reactor, I am not prepared to assume that is true.
Novosti is apparently an official news agency of the Russians.
Here’s another story from there today:
“ROME, December 7 (RIA Novosti) – A KGB defector refuted Thursday allegations relating to the Italian prime minister made by Mario Scaramella, an Italian security consultant and contact of late former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.
Italian newspaper La Repubblica Wednesday published a wiretapped conversation between Scaramella and an American acquaintance, in which Scaramella, citing Oleg Gordievsky, a UK resident who defected from the KGB in 1985, as saying Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi had been linked to the KGB.
Gordievsky denied ever having said Prodi was a KGB agent or that he had been of interest to the Soviet secret services, and said such claims had come from Litvinenko.
He said he met Scaramella on the request of the Mitrokhin Commission, a parliamentary body set up by former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi to investigate the activity of Soviet and post-Soviet spies in Italy, and that Scaramella, who advises the body, had done his best to obtain compromising information on Prodi.
Scaramella was admitted to hospital in late November after proving positive in tests for radioactive isotope polonium-210, which killed Alexander Litvinenko an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, who Scaramella had met around the time of the latter’s poisoning. But doctors said Scaramella’s dose was not dangerous, and discharged him.
Gordievsky said Litvinenko had merely said what Scaramella wanted to hear, because he was in desperate financial straits and hoped to benefit from such cooperation.
He added that Litvinenko had also discredited Prodi among some European MPs, who he said had asked him to confirm Litvinenko’s allegations.
”
http://en.rian.ru/world/20061207/56613662.html
It really doesn’t matter to me who he would have been smuggling it for in the past. It establishes that he has contacts in that market that could be used again for other purposes.
Go to google news and search on polonium smuggling. You will get several hundred hits, I just picked a couple easy ones.
AJ–
I tried to post earlier today and it didn’t work.
You are saying that Zakayev is threatening the West. I saw criticism–not threats.
He sounds to me like a typical critic of the Soviet and now Russian regime. He feels the west has ignored all the bad information about Putin because the West wants the oil. It is a fair criticism. It is what Muslims have said the West also did with Saddam–ignore his killings because of the oil.
You need to differentiate these Chechens–the Russians do. You are saying that all Chechens who oppose Russian rule–which has been unspeakably barbaric and stupid–are terrorists.
I read that the Russian State Security had ties with the real Chechen terrorist Basaev.
They used the radicals to undermine the moderate elected Chechen President Maskhadov. He fought the Russians–who have been kidnapping children and teens in Chechnya–but not as a terrorist. His targets were clearly military.
He supported the US in Iraq and he criticized the Beslan massacre.
You need to see what experts say about this Zakaev. Maybe he is more like Maskhadov. Our government did not consider Maskhadov a terrorist. He was a nationalist who had been an officer in the Soviet Army.
Check out http://www.rferl.org and
http://www.jamestown.org/
I don’t know what happened with this Polonium, but you are pretty skeptical about some of the allegations against Putin. A lot of his critics have died. You just blow off what people say about Putin as akin to the charges that Bush took down the WTC.
You need to educate yourself a bit about the different Chechen factions and about Putin. You need to read a bit more about what all these dead people have said about Putin.
I have a degree in Soviet Studies. Putin is trying real hard to depict Russian actions in Chechnya as part of the War on Terrorism. The Russians have behaved as terrorists in Chechnya. That is why the Chechens have flipped out.
Point is, there is zero evidence so far to show it was the work of FSB or any official security service of the government and a ton of circumstantial evidence that there was smuggling and long duration contamination going on. Luguvoi being contaminated for weeks before Litvinenko got sick and making so many trips between London/Moscow and being so contaminated a primary piece.
Besides the copy machine that Litvinenko touched, any other contamination at Boris’ office?
The light switch contamination interests me. Is that in Boris’ office? One test for alpha radiation is to place a panel (can be small, maybe an inch square) that is covered with phosphorus near the source. Alpha rays striking the panel will cause the phosphor to glow. It would be dim and better seen in the dark. It would look like a “twinkling” of the phosphor screen.
Snapple,
The words out of his mouth were [paraphrasing] “the West’s support of Russia for its cheap oil has brought upon you a Dirty Bomb”, and crime and corruption, blah, blah, blah.
Yes, that is a threat. It was the first ‘bad thing’ he mentioned in a list of punishments that the West would see for siding with his enemy – Putin/Russia. Read his words.
I mean, Duh!
Heh, or if they spilled the stuff and turned off the lights in the hopes it would glow and they could find it. Litvinenko was “agitated”. If I had just lost 30 million euros of anything, I might be “agitated” too.
So the only new evidence out today is more people contaminated and one additional contaminated spot. Nothing yet that points hard in any direction. So … I am still going to wait and see. Jumping to any conclusion at this point isn’t going to help if it isn’t the right one.
If I assume that Putin did it and it really was a smuggling accident and there is more polonium someplace around, then there is a chance more could be killed in the near future. I am going to err on the side that poses the worst threat for the moment considering there is a lot of supporting evidence for that possibility.
Also, did anyone else notice a reference in one of those articles I posted to “the weapon”?
Exatcly where has it been determined that anyone paid 30 Mil or any money for that matter?
It’s not worth anything until it exchanges hands from seller to buyer.
And probably 95% of the google hits for polonium smuggling are links to this story.
Of course it could be smuggled. There is no proof it has been, save for a case in 1993.
I’ll go with the sure thing – another poisoned critic of the Kremlin.
CP the lighh switch contamination was in the hotel room.(The “dirty bomb” reference, AJ, was quite certainly to the PO contamination in London. I, too think you have a skewed view of the Chechens.)
And if you want to get “WAY” out there …
http://sydney.indymedia.org/node/47328
We will see, Clarice. I expect some more information will be out in a week or so.
Anything-and I mean anything from Wayne Madsen should be regarded with a certain degree of skepticism – even if he seems to be “on your side” when you read him.