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News Story: The Mafia joins the nuclear club -
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January 24, 1999
Black market nukes
Second of two parts
The Mafia joins the nuclear club
Police sting nets enriched uranium on black market
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Special to The Star
ROME - At a little past noon last Feb. 10, an undercover agent with a
graying moustache entered the Café de Paris on Via Veneto, a block from
the American embassy. The police agent, posing as an Egyptian
businessman, ordered an espresso and waited.
A few minutes later, two mafiosi arrived at the café intent on selling
the agent a 28-inch-long cylinder containing a 190-gram bar of enriched
uranium.
A Sicilian dressed in a blazer did most of the talking. Soon the agent
was surrounded by several other men - including a known mob assassin -
all with semi-automatic pistols inside their jackets.
``At the first meeting both sides are very alert, nervous,'' the agent
said later. ``You feel a moment of danger run through things. They study
you, trying to unmask identity. It is not like a movie. There are no
second takes. You only have one chance to get it right.
``I had to convince them I was the kind of guy who would buy a bomb.''
This nuclear tale began unfolding months earlier, when a Mafia turncoat
tipped an Italian prosecutor about a stockpile of uranium the mob was
peddling. The Mafia boasted of possessing a long list of nuclear
materials, including eight missiles from the former Soviet Union.
Authorities quickly finessed a sting code-named Operation Gamma,
depositing millions of dollars in a Swiss bank account.
What they uncovered stunned them: An organized-crime syndicate not only
had managed to obtain a cache of nuclear material but also was boldly
trying to sell it to anyone willing to pay $170 million.
With terrorist groups and rogue states eager to build crude nuclear
weapons, and with Russia's nuclear arsenal left vulnerable by economic
chaos, the Mafia's hawking of uranium further raises the nuclear stakes
in the post-Cold War era.
Police confiscated the 190-gram uranium bar. But police and intelligence
officials acknowledge they failed to capture the mob's entire stockpile.
They speculate that seven other bars - comprising 1,330 grams of uranium
- are most likely hidden in Italy.
Intelligence officials say there is one more unnerving possibility: The
mob may actually be holding eight Russian missiles.
The Italian investigation netted 14 mobsters from three crime families.
Among those arrested were Marco Murroni, who has ties to the Palermo
mob, and Sergio Tringale, of the Santapaola clan from Catania. The
co-operation between criminal gangs indicates the Mafia's network is
widening into nuclear material that can be trafficked to nations or
terrorist groups.
Equally troubling to authorities was the Mafia's nonchalance in handling
radioactive material. The uranium bar was hauled around in automobile
trunks. At one point, according to police, a mobster sealed a small
crack in the bar with a blow torch.
``The Mafia didn't have the tools or the science to determine what they
had,'' said Sebastiano Ardita, an assistant prosecutor in Catania. ``I
think they thought they were really selling a nuclear warhead. It's
humorous and frightening at the same time.''
When the agent stepped through the polished doors of Café de Paris on
Feb. 10, he was uncertain what kind of uranium the Mafia was peddling.
After espressos, the four mobsters took the agent to lunch on the
outskirts of Rome.
Talk quickly turned from soccer to uranium. The men wanted $170 million
for what they described as uranium and, at various times, either
components for eight Russian nuclear missiles or nuclear material from
their warheads; they never actually produced missiles for inspection.
The undercover agent, code-named the Accountant, countered with an offer
to pay $18.5 million for each uranium item over a period of time.
There was haggling. But the Mafia wanted a quick score, and finally the
$18.5 million price was agreed upon.
The Sicilians said they would contact the agent to set up the next
meeting.
Uranium bar No. 6916, was shipped to a Triga II research reactor in
Kinshasa, Zaire, in 1972 - one of at least 10 bars sent to Zaire.
Wracked by instability, Zaire quit funding the reactor in 1988. It was
shut down in 1992. The International Atomic Energy Agency noted that
some uranium was missing from the reactor facility during the 1980s.
Italian investigators believe someone in the entourage of then-dictator
Mobutu Sese Seko carted out the bar when rebel forces toppled his
government in 1997.
At some point, the bar surfaced on the black market and found its way to
the Mafia.
In
