Part of a series on Organized Crime and the Environment, by Raven
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3. NUCLEAR POWER SAFETY

Aside from the risk of making nuclear weapons, there are various other hazards to "civilain" use of nuclear technology, that can be exploited by organized crime.

These range from threatening to blow up a nuclear power reactor, to spreading radioactive waste in a target building of water supply, or arranging to illegally dump nuclear waste.

THREATS TO BLOW UP REACTORS

The most serious published event was the November 1994 threat to blow up the Ignalina nuclear reactor in Lithuania, unless mobster Boris Dekanidze was released. Dekanidze was sheduled for execution for the murder of investigative journalist Vitas Lingys, who had written articles exposing mob in activities in Lithuania.
[see: Sunday Mail (UK) November 13, 1994 ]

The Ignalina, a larger version Chernobyl-type reactor, was shut down following the threats. Kestutis Mazuika, who claimed to work for a secret Lithuanian organisation called NUC-41 W, was arrested in Sweden, after he threatened to blow up Ignalina unless paid $8 million. Reportedly, murderer Dekanidze's father, Georgy Dekanidze, had also threatened to blow up the nuclear plant. The plant was closed, following a tip from the Germans, from Dekanidze's "Vilnius Brigade" gang.

A joint Swedish-Lithuanian team found no explosives at the plant, and it was re-started without incident. Ignalina was the first incident of a mob threatening to blow up an atomic reactor.

SAFETY OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS AT POWER PLANTS

The Ignalina plant was also the site where 600 pounds of non-enriched uranium and strontium were reported "missing" in January, 1993. "Lithuanian police arrested Raimondas Urbonas, a metal dealer, who admitted smuggling 22lb of slightly radioactive uranium from Russia to Lithuania to be sold in Poland. Prosecutors believe Urbonas lied, and that the uranium is either in the hands of the local "mafia" or has already been sold to the West. "
[source: The Daily Telegraph (UK) April 13, 1993 ]

ILLEGAL DUMPING OF NUCLEAR WASTE

Italian authorities suspected that the Ndrangheta (based in Calabria, Italy) and the Camorra (based in Naples) were dumping radioactive waste from East European sources into the Mediterranean sea bed.

The Italian environmental group Legambiente collected extensive documentation indicating that Giorgio Comerio, owner of a variety of businesses in Italy and Malta, provided radioactive waste disposal, and was part of the illegal mob business. Comerio, partly funded by the international Euratom agency, and with $ 125 million of United States and Japanese money, disposes of radioactive waste in 16 meter-long torpedoes which penetrate deep into the sea bed, each one carrying up to 200 tons of radioactive waste.

Italian magistrate Domenico Porcelli, said that a substantial part of this waste ends up at the bottom of the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas, threatening to turn Italy into a "nuclear cemetery."
[source: Inter Press Service July 7, 1995 ]

Legambiente "also said that the Italian secret services had leads on traffickers, the mafia and representatives of Third World governments all linked to the nuclear trade, while Bologna, in northern Italy, has become an illicit international uranium exchange."
[quote from: Inter Press Service July 7, 1995 ]

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