Radioactive sources, stolen

After a year practically the same situation was repeated in Pavlograde city. There a Russian citizen tried to sell on the territory of Ukraine a radioactive source bought on the black market. In the course of the investigations it was discovered that the radioactive source was stolen from one of the enterprises in the Chelyabinsk district. 

Stolen radioactive sources, specifically Co (radioactive cobalt), have caused injuries elsewhere, including Juarez, Mexico, and Thailand. Within the United... 

The radioactive contaminant is Cs-137 from a radiography source stolen from an area firm several weeks ago. It was dispersed by a pipe bomb using a hobby fuse and smokeless... 

The term orphan source refers to a radioactive source that is not under regulatory control, either because it has never been so, or because it has been abandoned, lost, misplaced, stolen or otherwise transferred without proper authorization. 

Recent experience suggests that the use of a SRD, intentional or unintentional, is a plausible scenario. One potential SRD source is radioactive Cesium ( Cs), which has many industrial and medical uses. Industry uses Cs in highway construction in devices that measure the density of asphalt. In the Southeast United States, several of these devices have been missing or stolen, with their location unknown (1). The 1987 incident in Goiania, Brazil occurred after thieves stole a Cs therapy source, still contained in its shielding, from a hospital, and sold it for scrap metal. Other involved individuals then broke up the source and shared it. None of the people involved was aware that the device was harmful, and authorities did not detect the incident for 15 days. By that time (1) ... 

Some NFA investigators believe that too much focus is placed on the IND post-det scenario at present. Their opinion is that, should such a catastrophe become reality, the counterterrorism enterprise of any organization had failed in a most fundamental way, and perhaps more assets should have been devoted to enhanced surveillance, improved radiation instrumentation, device detection, etc. A similar view is sometimes expressed for source NFA in the pre-det arena. Although very important to know the identity and isotopic composition of a radioactive threat, additional source analyses would perhaps provide nuclear production details, facility identification, and the time since last chemical processing. However, were the material or an assembled weapon stolen, such source information would likely be but nominally productive in attribution efforts. Indeed, only pre- or post-det (RDD) route analyses have the potential to identify terrorist personnel and places of interest, a point sometimes unappreciated by NFA programmatic efforts. 

Other portable devices containing potentially hazardous amounts of radioactive material are also used in oil exploration, mining, and construction. These portable devices are often stolen because they appear to be valuable construction equipment or are in or attached to a truck being stolen. In some instances, thieves have removed and discarded the sources from the device (shielding) in public places. In some cases, prompt action by public officials to alert the public (and thus the thieves) of the hazard has resulted in the thieves telling officials where to find the sources. In at least two cases, the highly publicized arrival of national-level monitoring teams and aircraft to look for the sources convinced the thieves to return the sources and seek medical treatment. 

Most radiologieal emergencies do not involve an airborne release of radioactive material. Typieally, a radioaetive source used in industry or medicine is lost or stolen. In this ease humans are the most important method of spread and movement of the material in the... 

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