Security officials in the nation of Georgia have taken two foreign nationals into custody after they attempted to buy nuclear materials worth $3 million, including uranium and a dangerous radioactive substance used in nuclear weapons programs, authorities announced Thursday.
The arrests took place in Kutaisi, where the State Security Service apprehended the suspects from undisclosed countries, according to an official statement.
“They were planning to illegally purchase nuclear material uranium and radioactive substance Cesium 137 for $3 million and illegally transport it to the territory of another country,” the security service stated.
Officials revealed that additional foreign individuals have been coming to Georgia in recent weeks with similar intentions to buy and smuggle nuclear and radioactive substances, though they provided no further details about these activities.
Authorities did not disclose how much material the suspects were trying to obtain, nor did they reveal where the substances came from or their intended final destination.
Cesium 137 represents a particularly dangerous radioactive material that typically appears following nuclear weapons tests and nuclear power plant disasters, including the catastrophic Chernobyl accident that occurred in what was then Soviet Ukraine in 1986.
Nuclear material security became a major international concern following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, when Georgia was still part of the former communist bloc. The country has experienced multiple serious cases involving illegal nuclear material trafficking over the past several decades.
In the most recent previous incident, authorities in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi arrested three Chinese nationals who were attempting to purchase two kilograms of uranium described as “nuclear material.”
