Dec 07 2006
Millenium Hotel Now The Poison Site, Smuggling Theory Expands
First off, another one of my predictions I made which I said would come true if this was a smuggling effort came true. I predicted back on December 5th that if this was a smuggling effort we would find Polonium traces at hotels that lined up with the trips of Lugovoi on Oct 15th, Oct 25th and Nov 1st because these were trips where Litvinenko met Lugovoi (as if to check on the status of some effort). That has now come true:
Traces of polonium-210 has been found at Parkes Hotel, Mayfair, it was confirmed last night. It means that radiation has been found at all three hotels where Mr Lugovoy had stayed since flying to London on October 16. The Parkes was the first he stayed at.
The radioactive isotope has also been found at Risc Management, a security firm in Cavendish Place, visited by Litvinenko with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun on October 17.
Back on December 1st I said if this was a smuggling ring that was exposed by an accident one of the Russians with Lugovoi (who would be coordinating the smuggling, not handling the material himself) would fall ill. Obviously that happened today as well. I am now ready to be proven wrong, if it all possible. If there were three rounds of Polonium 210 shipments, and Litvinenko was only poisoned as one of these shipments came through, how much Polonium is still out there?
The UK media are chasing their conspiracy spinning tails on the Litvinenko incident, but finally they may be seeing the light. As I proposed here, and in numerous other posts, I think the second major contamination site at the Millenium Hotel at Grosvenor’s Square is where the poisining of Litvinenko took place. I think there is a case to be made that Litvinenko met twice with Lugovoi and Kovtun (two Russian “business associates” of Litvinenko and Berezovsky): once in the morning or mid-day before the Scaramella meeting, and then again after the meeting in the early evening. Reporting keeps getting conflicting inputs because the idea of two meetings in one day has not been widely contemplated. In any event, the Times UK is now moving the site of the major poisoning event to the Millenium Hotel:
All seven bar staff working at the Pine Bar in the Millennium Hotel that night have tested positive for polonium-210, the radioactive isotope that killed Litvinenko. Health authorities are trying urgently to contact the 250 customers using the busy bar on November 1.
The Pine Bar is a popular haunt for businessmen and foreign guests at the five-star hotel in Grosvenor Square. Many of those overseas travellers have returned home after being told they were at no risk.
Health experts said they were surprised to find that the levels of radiation found in the seven bar staff approached that found in Litvinenko’s wife, Marina.
As I mentioned in this previous post the contamination level can be used to derive how close the person was to ground zero event (when the major contamination happened that poisoned Litvinenko). Litvinenko was at ground zero (obviously) and the closest one since had the highest dose (he fell ill first and died first). The second closest to ground zero may be Kuvton, who seems to have fallen ill and could be on his way to dying. The third known contamination is Scaramella – who is a second tier vector having been contaminated by Litvinenko at his Sushi Bar meeting. No other restaurant staff were contaminated at that location. The next closest contaminated people are the 7 staff members at the Millenium Pine Bar and Litvinenko’s wife. They seem to be like Scaramella in that they ran into a prime vector (Litvinenko or Kovtun) who was at ground zero, but far enough away in time that whatever contamination was on the vector had dissipated by some means or another so that they received less of a dose than Scaramella.
As distance, or time, or some other intervening vector creates distance from ground zero and the two prime vectors we know of (Litvinenko and Kovtun) the risk to people drops off. What is not clear is whether there are any more prime vectors who were at ground zero. Was Lugovoi? We should know soon because they should be getting ill pretty soon.
But someone is really stringing the media along here:
Michael Clark, of the agency’s radiation protection division, said last night that it was possible that Litvinenko was poisoned by a contaminated cigarette or drink.
A minute quantity of polonium-210 placed in Litvinenko’s glass would explain how he ingested the radioactive poison that led to his agonising death three weeks later.
The vapour that evaporated from the drink would have been inhaled by anyone in the area, with a greater concentration for his Russian companions and staff, who would have been in the bar much longer.
Litvinenko did not have a minute quantity of Polonium-210 by toxic standards. He ingested 50-100 times the lethal dose, which represented 30 million euros worth of Polonium-210 (at its peak purity – assuming minimal decay time since production). The ‘vapors’ do not explain how Scaramella received 5 times the lethal dose, and it number three on our dose chart (Kovtun looks to be number two and I would guess that if he is truly as ill as people say he could be at 10-20 times the lethal dose). The other problem we have is there could have been a build up over many exposures in Litvinenko or Kovtun over the three week period in questions. It is possibly the cumulative dose is the result of a number of smaller exposures. But this theory being put out to the UK Times seems a very strained. My theory holds up better, which entails an early meeting in a hotel room which is the true ground zero:
Investigators believe the poison cocktail was likely to have been manufactured in a guest room at the hotel, a short walk away from the US Embassy. Significant traces of polonium-210 were found in a fourth-floor room, which was occupied by a visiting Russian.Police believe that the killer may have stalked Litvinenko in London that day and had first tried to poison the ex-KGB colonel in a sushi bar. That failed but the poisoner left ample traces of the deadly radioactive isotope in the Piccadilly restaurant. Traces were also found on an Italian academic, Mario Scaramella, who was in the Itsu sushi bar. Toxicologists found polonium-210 in every place that Litvinenko visited after his drink at the hotel. It was not until he arrived home two hours later that he was violently ill.
This theory is pretty lame (except the fact there was ‘a spill’ of what must have been a Polonium-210 acid suspension in the hotel room) because it proposes the assassin had no clear opportunities to get Litvinenko in an open area like a street, or had to trail him and get the job done that one day. The amount of Polonium available was enough to kill Litvinenko 50-100 times over. An assassin could have trailed at his liesure, leaving a drop in a drink while passing by and slowly building up the toxicity of the Polonium-210 in Litvinenko. If an assassin selected Polonium-210 it is assumed they took the time to study how it could be administered covertly.
Update: Larisa Alexandrovna has posted something she says will make me very happy – so I thought I would share it with everyone.
Enlightened,
Why smuggle $50 million dollars of Polonium to kill one marginal person?
Please, that is just ridiculous.
The scariest part is that PO-210 is used for early russian nuclear arms (which can be small, if tactical) trigger .
Since it decays quickly, it needs to be replaced for the weapon to function.
Even a dirty bomb with PO can do a lot of damage.
I hope nothing happens in the West in the next 6 months…..
so much for the Muslim conversion: He (K) joked that on the night “the only poison we (he and his business partner Mr Lugovoy) gave Litvinenko was alcoholâ€.
And why smuggle it in then out then in then out then in again? That would have to be the case if we are talking about Lugovoi carrying the murder weapon. Easier to just carry it in once and leave it somewhere like a safe deposit box or something.
Could it be that it came in sometime before the 16th and was held by Litvinenko then brought to the various hotels for division and distribution?
DBoston – now there’s a thought – this stuff was brought in and divided up to refresh the triggers of a bunch of bombs scattered around Lond- is that possible?
Any news lately on the individual that was detained by MI6?
If the smuggling gone wrong theory is correct, how can the “death list” be explained, unless Scaramella is part of the smuggling plot?
from the Guardian – this is the origin of the mysterious shadowers theory: Detectives are also known to be interested in a group, which included Mr Lugovoi,which flew to London on British Airways flight BA875 a week earlier and stayed at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel. (Reminder these are not the ones who came for the soccer match – this is Lugovoy and not Kovtov (sp?) I think. These are the four rooms that have been mentioned one including a light switch. This is the Oct 25 meeting – of course this theory does not jive with the Oct. 16 contamination but nevermind
The 5x Scaramella dose has been said to be wrong, so the vapours idea seems in play there IMO. The popcorn like recoil property of Po spreading seems to me to be applicable to any container, including Sasha’s mouth; and there’s no question he ingested a large amount of Po. The $30-50M value of the Po doesn’t apply to a government that produces it, just as the price of diamonds depend upon the deBeers cartel.
On the other hand, the multiple lines of contamination do seem to fit better with smuggling CP, as does Sasha’s murder by a smuggling gang if he was tracking them with Scaramella.
AJ – Why do you think the PO is worth 50 Million? – when it was obtained for free?
It’s not worth anything until money exchanges hands. If it was obtained for free from a Russian nuclear agency to assassinate a group of individuals who gives a crap how much they COULD have got if they sold it instead?
I don’t get how you keep alluding to the value of the PO210 as just “too valuable” to use as the “smoking gun” so-to-speak.
Not a peep about that MI5 detainee for days that I’ve seen and I’ve read a lot – was it rumor or real?
Oops, was MI5
I’m pretty sure the light switch contamination was at the Millennium.
If the smuggling scenario is correct, it would seem like an extraordinary coincidence that Scaramella, armed with a death list, would meet up with Litvinenko on the very same day that he was poisoned in a Po-210 transfer operation.
Considering how unlikely this is, it follows that Scaramella is probably lying and is likely to be a smuggler himself, a mercenary. He gave Litvinenko the radioactive material, and he passed it on to Lugovoi et al, who may or may not have had additional material. Perhaps the container was (purposefully or not) compromised when in Scaramella’s possession, or perhaps he has later ingested a small amount to divert attention from the activity at the Milennium hotel.
If it is correct that Litvinenko received his 100 x fatal dose on the Milennium hotel by accident, such as dropping a glass jar, they should have found enormous amounts at the Milennium hotel (at least 1000 x lethal). As far as I can see, they have not, though? Perhaps they tried to clean up the material somehow.
If Litvinenko was tracking a smuggling group suspected of traffic in nuclear materials, they wouldn’t have used nuclear materials to kill him to get him off the trail.
Imagine you are a drug dealer and you think someone has you under surveillance. You OD them on the very drugs they suspect you of dealing and then walk around with the drug all over you for weeks leaving it everywhere? I don’t think so. Not even my children are that dumb when they have been into the cookie jar. My son at least wipes the chocolate off his face.
Jerry sorry yes you are correct the lightswitch was at the Millenium (too much wine)
Problem is that this same person had already told Litvinenko that information directly years before he went to prison. It might be the first that Scaramella heard of it, though. Litvinenko might have been more interested in the other names on that list. Some of which might have been new to him. That explains why he might want a copy. To have someone check them out and see who they were. Potential new converts to his little Chechen operation? Who knows.
Even if Po-210 is readily available to some, it still represents money. Every person involved in an operation where Po-210 was used as a weapon for the world’s biggest overkill ever would be tempted to steal some of it. Who would ever be the wiser?
FYI, Scaramella is an opportunist par excellence – who knows how he got himself involved – it could have been a cooincidence or the Chechen driver and others just played this up to advance their anti Putin cause – they had a couple of weeks to concoct all this before anybody realized L. was sick with radiation thalium or otherwise.